Getting qualified as a sparky (although I still count myself as a plumber rather than a dirty smelly sparky) made me feel absolutely disgusting. It did however double my turnover the year I qualified. It took me from being busy enough to keep myself working full time to taking on my first apprentice and keeping us both busy full time.
This is the first week I've really stepped away from my business and left the 2 lads doing the day to day work while I'm on my gas course.
If you want to stay a one man band (and there is nothing wrong with that at all) then there's probably no need to learn extra trades. To be honest, there is only so much work you can fit into a week and each trade comes with it's own additional fixed costs.
If you want to expand your business and eventually train lads to work for you then adding extra skills in is the way to go imo. We get a lot of jobs where the customer has both smallish electrical and plumbing work and wants it all done by one company. When I look at all the big plumbing companies around here they do everything in house - electrics, gas, renewables, oil etc.
Rewires earn more profit than re-plumbing a house because it's controlled building work, just like gas work is going to be more profitable than plumbing (or should be). If you want to do renewables eventually you will need to be able to do your own electrics ideally so stop paying for that sparky and retrain!
I think you need an NVQ 3 on the electrical side now before you can register with the schemes as a full scope sparky. Do check this though as it's only what I've heard, I slipped through before they changed it!
