Is plumbing just a pipe dream for graduates?
Richard Nissen was an architect. Now he is a plumber. More than that, plumbing is his new passion and the days spent designing homes and offices are over. According to Mr Nissen, 53, there is a revolution going on in the world of work. “I believe passionately that the manual trades have a much more interesting future,” he says. But it is not just idle theorising. Mr Nissen, now in the second year of an NVQ course in plumbing at the College of North-West London, is the living embodiment of what he preaches. He has good reason for his views. Buoyed by media reports of plumbers earning £70,000 and more, he reckons that half his class are graduates. They include a sports scientist, a chemist, a biochemist and two from accountancy. Other trainees are a former TV producer, and a Latin American dancer. “I am incredibly enthusiastic that there are more and more graduates coming into plumbing,” he says. “This is a new wave of people, the middle classes suddenly realising that actually all these
