Electrical apprenticeships defying post-COVID slowdown
When she’s not working in a sweaty underground station, Aurelia St Quintin spends her days studying university texts.
The third-year apprentice electrician joined Ausgrid directly after high school and is also completing his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering.
“My career looks very different from most of my friends,” he says.
“But when we are together, I feel really proud that I can point out the infrastructure and explain to them how it all works.”
Ms St Quintin says she enjoys the challenge of a busy schedule and learning how the concepts of apprenticeships and degrees complement each other.
From Monday, apprentices will be celebrated during National Apprenticeship Week and apprenticeships will be promoted as a way to highlight their role in shaping the future of the industry across the country.
Apprenticeships boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic, fueled by a $1.2 billion federal wage subsidy, but start numbers have fallen since that training ended.
Still, the numbers show a few fields remain resilient, including electricians and childcare workers.
According to the National Vocational Training Research Centre, 133,255 Australians started an apprenticeship in the 12 months to 30 June; this is a 51.9 per cent decrease from the peak in 2021/22.
In-training trades starting in 2024/25 remained higher than before 2019, but non-trade apprenticeships were around 10 per cent below pre-pandemic levels.
Among the fields where the apprenticeship rate increased but the total workforce decreased between 2022-25 were environmental science, structural steel and welding, aircraft maintenance engineering, tool making and engineering mold making, air conditioning mechanics, elderly and disabled care, security works and animal husbandry.
Joshua Jones, 35, of Newcastle, is working as an electrician for fiber optic and data cabling company RAD Electric Co after gaining his TAFE electrotechnology certificate.
“Electricity is a profession where your skills are in demand and can take you anywhere,” he says.
“Apprenticeships give you real experience, real qualifications and long-term career options.”
As a father, Mr Jones says it was important for him to choose a career that offered stability and long-term career options.
Central Coast mother-of-two Elisha Jane Grice, who worked as an electrician for Terrigal Electrical after gaining a similar TAFE certificate, says she was attracted to the trade because of its hands-on nature.
“I knew I didn’t want a generic office job,” he says.
“I love being outside and doing something different every day, and apprenticeships really suit that.”
She is the only woman in her training group but describes both TAFE and the workplace as supportive environments and appreciates that her employer is flexible about her family life.
“Apprenticeships are sometimes seen as the easy option, but they are absolutely not,” says Ms Grice.
“The skills you learn are so valuable that you can take them anywhere, which makes it really rewarding.”
Ms Grice and Mr Jones are part of a trend of more mature Australians taking up apprenticeships.
While the employment rate among young people aged 25-44 has increased by 54 percent since 1995, this rate was 17 percent for those aged 19 and under.
“What we are seeing in classrooms up and down the state is a real shift in who is entering the professions,” says TAFE NSW electrical trades team leader Stuart Bailey.
“More adults are choosing apprenticeships because they want practical skills, safe working and a career that can grow with them.”
He adds that older students bring life experience and motivation, as well as a clear sense of purpose and stability.
Ausgrid welcomed the latest intake of apprentices to its “bright spark” program in January.
The group, which includes a range of mature-aged recruits, can choose from three trade streams: electrical, trackwork and wiring.
Ausgrid, which maintains the poles, wires and cables that supply power to more than 1.8 million NSW customers, says each offers on-the-job rotational training with field teams experienced in overhead work, substations, transmission lines, underground work and safety.
According to Celina Cross, the company’s group director of people and culture, “It’s a really exciting time to be doing an apprenticeship in the energy sector.”
“An apprenticeship with Ausgrid is no longer just a trade route, it is about being at the forefront of the energy transition,” he says.
“We are feeling the impacts of the growing skills gap in the energy sector and are responding by investing in our apprenticeships to develop talent both now and into the future.”
Ms Cross says the company offers its apprentices supervision, support and mentoring from experienced field teams throughout the programme.
More than a quarter of apprentices are women.
Ms St Quintin says she has enjoyed great support and mentorship, but adds that the early starts were an adjustment. He’s not a morning person.
There were also days when Ausgrid’s underground substations in the Sydney CBD could get very hot, but the work was so interesting that he got used to it.
He is currently working on Sydney’s Northern Beaches and learning about maintaining electrical infrastructure, including overhead lines and kiosks.
When he completes his studies, he hopes to become an engineering officer so he can do both technical and field work.
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