People ask me this all the time - usually high school kids or career changers - and I try to give them the honest version instead of the trade promotion version. The real positives: good money, genuinely interesting work that changes every day, the satisfaction of building something tangible and seeing it work, job security (electricity isn’t going away), and the ability to start your own business without a college degree. Those things are all real.
The real challenges: the work is physically demanding and gets more so as you age - crawling attics in 120 degree heat, pulling wire through conduit under a concrete slab, being on your feet for 10 hours on a hard surface. The schedule can be brutal on large commercial jobs with mandatory overtime. If you’re union, you may have weeks or months between dispatch if work slows down. If you’re non-union, a contractor who folds or loses a big contract can leave you unemployed suddenly.
The mental health reality: electricians, like most tradespeople, don’t talk about this enough. The physical strain, the pressure of service calls, the isolation of working alone on service work - these are real. The industry has a higher rate of substance abuse and mental health struggles than many professions. Knowing this going in and building a support system matters. The trade school marketing doesn’t mention any of this, but it’s part of the honest picture.