No-code and low-code solutions have been getting better so the demand for those jobs is drying up though, but there are still massive operations running on top of some wordpress server that people FTP files to.
I agree though.
The median salary of an electrician in the USA is $62k. For a software developer, the median is $130k.
A top 10% electrician earns $110k. A top 10% software developer earns $210k.
In fact, even developers in the bottom 10% of software development out earn a median electrician.
You must have missed that part.
I worked for an engineering firm that did low voltage design (Network / A-V). The people who installed our plans weren't just high school types, trust me.
Never in my life do I want to run Cat6 cables around again. I was freaking 17 and already getting back aches from leaning down so often.
I think people often conflate "being a <trade>" with "owning a <trade> business." A W-2 electrician earns a median salary of $62k in the USA. A guy who runs a business as an electrician might bill out $250k a year for his work, but he'll have to pay expenses like insurance, vehicles, gas, tools/tec, FICA, taxes, rent, on call services, and probably salaries for his assistants (which may include an unpaid secret assistant like a spouse who coordinates appointments). So their take home isn't nearly that much.
Yes, but I presume at a high physical cost in the long-term? (I mean, more than the physical cost of sitting in a chair)
Why? Electricians aren't doing intense labour, and I'm 99% certain that being in a job where you move around a lot (as opposed to sitting at your desk) has long term health benefits, without even getting into carpal tunnel syndrome and other RSIs associated with being at a computer.
I have seen it in other trades. My family is GC, we have retired biz folks doing cranes, excavators, and some light hand trades.
I personally am considering starting an arborist.
But hammering a rod into the ground for 15 minutes, or holding some weight over your head, or carrying weight in your toolbag are not things that break your body down; they build your body up.
Bending a 200 amp service wire around in a panel is no light task.
As someone who has never been to a gym, but has grown up on a farm and lived a life of mostly trades, it reminds me of all I see written about the different types of working out and how gym can be so different from physical labors conditions where what you are doing may not be a giant lift, or a giant use of force, but you've got to be able to do it for hours a day, back to back to back, day after day.
Our perspectives delude us.
I'm not deluded at all. I spent a few of my younger years in the oil sands, which definitely convinced me that wasn't something I could or wanted to do forever.
But we seem to be calling anything other than "sitting at a desk doing knowledge work" physically demanding. Maybe it's me, but having physical elements of your job and the job being physically demanding are different things. And when you are out of shape, anything is demanding.
Canada?