Careers in Building & Construction: Scaffolder
For this week’s instalment of #ShowUsYourTool, we went on site at a Simonds Homes project to interview a scaffolder. Check out the gallery for Matthew’s take on safety at heights, lugging steel and working with good guys.
Are you in a trade and ready to take the next step in your building & construction career? Builders Academy Australia are running Certificate IV & Diploma level qualifications in Building & Construction that are a stepping stone towards getting your builders license and registration. See our course pages for more information, or call us on 1300 LEGEND to speak to one of our consultants today.
CPC50220 Diploma of Building and Construction (Building)
CPC40120 Certificate IV in Building and Construction (Building)
Name and age: Matthew, 29
Trade: Scaffolder
Tools of the trade: Hammer, level and tape
“I’ve been doing this five years all up. Before this I was in warehouse management. I got this job through a mate, started off as a labourer, got my ticket and went from there.”
“I’m the leading hand here. On site, leading hand is about as high as you can go as a scaffolder, then you just go in the office, or into a supervisor role, something like that. There are a lot of different ways I can go from here; I can go commercial, which is a lot higher but there’s a bit more involved.”
“It’s never boring. It is very dangerous. You are working at heights. You can do all the training but it’s not hard to fall off. Safety becomes second nature once you’ve been doing it for long enough.”
“We won’t let you up on the scaff until you’ve been working for at least six months. For your first six months, all you’re doing is lugging steel, laying all the gear out. I had my ticket for about six months before they let me start building.”
“Today is a great day and this isn’t too hard a job. If you haven’t done any manual work, scaffolding is probably a hard thing to get straight into. For the first three or four weeks, your shoulders just want to drop off. Sometimes I wake up and my back is pretty sore.”
“Hammer, level and tape. That’s all we really need, pretty much. You’ve got to have the big one.”
“The blokes I work with are all good. Being with them every day is pretty good.”
Legend. Thanks, Matthew.
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