Carpentry & Joinery

At East Durham College, our apprenticeship team works with construction firms around the North East to offer apprenticeship opportunities in carpentry and joinery.

If you're the kind of person who loves working with their hands, completing projects and working hard, this could definitely be the industry for you.

What Do Carpenters & Joinery Apprentices Do?

In short, carpentry and joinery is all about working with wood.

Both carpenters and joiners are massively important to the construction process, and are often employed by housebuilding firms to help with building of new properties.

A joiner is the person who 'joins' together different types of wood, hence the name. This may, for example, be constructing wooden roof beams into the correct shape, or creating a door frame. More specialised work might have you creating such things as tables, chairs or cabinets. 

Joiners tend to work more 'behind-the-scenes' in the workshop rather than out on-site.

Carpentry, on the other hand, focuses on larger elements and tends to be out on-site. 

Carpenters will usually work with the wood that may have been previously prepared by a joiner, and they're usually responsible for fitting the components or using them to create something else, like roofing.

Carpenters will work more on-site than joiners.

Earn While You Learn

Working in construction really pays off - carpenters, on average in the UK, earn over £30,000 per year.

As an apprentice you won't quite make that much, but you'll earn an apprenticeship wage while you're learning on the job. Your employer will be responsible for ensuring you learn the skills you need to become a competent carpenter and joiner, and you'll be supported with regular learning at East Durham College too.