Electrical Apprenticeships in Ireland: Entry Requirements, Training and How to Apply
- 14 hours ago
- 5 min read
There are 81 people at Greenlight. A good number of them started as apprentices, and several of them started here. An electrical apprenticeship is one of the few routes in Ireland where you are paid from your first week, finish with a QQI Level 6 qualification, carry no student debt, and come out into a trade with more demand than supply.
Every apartment block, retrofit, hospital and data centre in the country needs qualified electricians. There are not enough of them.
This is a plain guide to how it actually works, what you need to get in, how the four years are structured, what you would be working on with us, and how to apply.
Why an electrical apprenticeship is worth considering
You earn from week one. Apprentices are employees, not students. You are paid for the on-the-job phases, and apprentice rates rise each year as you progress.
No tuition fees for the off-the-job training phases.
You finish with a QQI Level 6 Advanced Certificate — a recognised national qualification, not an in-house certificate.
The trade travels. An Irish electrical qualification is well regarded far beyond Ireland.
There is a route upward. Qualified electrician, chargehand, foreman, site supervisor, contracts manager. Several people in our own management team took exactly that path.
The demand is structural, not a blip. Housing delivery, energy retrofit and electrification all run through the same trade.
Entry requirements for an electrical apprenticeship
Apprenticeships in Ireland are governed nationally by SOLAS, so the entry requirements are the same whichever employer you join.
Minimum age
You must be at least 16 years of age to begin employment as an apprentice.
Education: you need one of these three
Grade D, or "Achieved", in five subjects in the Junior Certificate or an approved equivalent, or
successful completion of an approved pre-apprenticeship course, or
three years' relevant work experience gained over the age of 16 in a designated industrial activity, where SOLAS considers it acceptable.
That second and third route matter more than people realise. If the Junior Cert didn't go your way, you are not shut out. And if you are in your twenties or thirties thinking about changing direction, the experience route exists specifically for you.
Colour vision
Electrical apprentices must pass a colour vision test approved by SOLAS. Cable and conductor identification depends on it. It is worth knowing about this one before you apply rather than after.
What actually gets you hired
The requirements above are the floor, not the bar. When we are deciding whether to take somebody on, we are looking at three things: do you turn up, on time, consistently; will you take instruction on a live site where safety is not negotiable; and are you genuinely interested in how the work goes together.
Attitude and reliability outrank exam results in almost every hiring conversation we have.
How to get an apprenticeship: the part most people get wrong
Most people assume you apply to a college, or to SOLAS, and get placed with an employer afterwards. It works the other way around.
You need an employer first.
The sequence is:
1. Get hired by an approved employer. This is the real hurdle, and it is the whole game.
2. They employ you as an apprentice.
3. They register you with SOLAS. An employer must do this within two weeks of recruiting you.
4. SOLAS allocates your off-the-job phases at a training centre and college as you progress.
The employer has to be approved to train apprentices. Greenlight is. So the practical answer to "how do I get an electrical apprenticeship in Ireland" is short: get hired by a contractor who takes apprentices, and everything else follows from that.
What the four years actually involve
A craft apprenticeship runs 208 weeks, or four years, across seven phases that alternate between working on site and training off site. Four phases are on the job with your employer. Three are off the job.
Phase | Where | Type | Duration |
1 | On site with Greenlight | On the job | Induction and supervised site work |
2 | ETB training centre | Off the job | Approx. 22 weeks |
3 | On site with Greenlight | On the job | Applying phase 2 on live work |
4 | Technological university / college | Off the job | Approx. 10 to 11 weeks |
5 | On site with Greenlight | On the job | Increasing responsibility |
6 | Technological university / college | Off the job | Approx. 10 to 11 weeks |
7 | On site with Greenlight | On the job | Final phase before award |
The off-the-job phases cover the theory: electrical science, principles, drawing and interpretation of specifications, regulations, and practical workshop training in a controlled environment. The on-the-job phases are where you learn the job itself: how it is actually installed, in a real building, to a real programme.
On successful completion, you are awarded a QQI Advanced Certificate (Craft) at Level 6 on the National Framework of Qualifications.
What you would work on as an apprentice at Greenlight
This is where apprenticeships genuinely differ from one another. Two apprentices can hold the same qualification after four years and have had very different experiences, depending on what they were actually allowed near.
We deliberately move apprentices across the full range of our work:
High-density residential fit-out. First, second and final fix electrical across apartments, duplexes and houses. This is the backbone of what we do and where most apprentices spend the bulk of their time.
Commissioning and testing, deliberately and earlier than many employers allow. You learn a system properly by seeing it energised, tested and certified, not just by pulling the cable.
Life safety systems. Fire detection and alarm, emergency lighting. Highly regulated work, and a valuable specialism to have exposure to early.
Retrofit and energy upgrades. Heat pumps, solar PV and BER improvement works. This is the fastest-growing part of the Irish market.
Occupied buildings. Working in blocks where people live. It teaches a standard of care and tidiness that new-build alone never quite does.
Our current work includes first and second fix electrical across a large Cairn residential development in Saggart, alongside maintenance and upgrade contracts on thousands of apartments across the country.
Access to the Cairn Apprenticeship Programme
Greenlight works extensively with Cairn Homes, one of Ireland's largest homebuilders.
Cairn has committed significant investment to its own Apprenticeship Programme, and the supports it offers extend to apprentices employed by its subcontractors, including tutoring and education supports, financial supports, and dedicated learning zones on live Cairn sites where apprentices can practise their trade in a working-site environment.
For an apprentice working with us on a Cairn project, that can mean a level of structured support beyond what any single contractor provides on its own.
Apprentice of the Month
We have recently launched an Apprentice of the Month award across the business.
Apprentices are nominated by their supervisors and judged on the things that genuinely matter on a site: safety standards, timekeeping, quality of work, and a willingness to ask questions rather than guess.
It is recognition, and it is meant to be enjoyed. But it is also a record. The apprentices who pick it up consistently are the people we look to hold onto when they qualify, and increasingly the people we look at when a chargehand or supervisor role opens up a few years later.
How to apply for an apprenticeship with Greenlight
We are always on the lookout for new talent.
Vacancies go up on our Indeed channel first. Electrical apprenticeships, qualified electricians, plumbers and mechanical roles are all advertised there, so it is worth following the page and turning on job alerts so you see openings as they appear.
You can also just contact us directly. If you are serious about learning a trade and prepared to put the work in, we would far rather hear from you than not, even if nothing happens to be advertised on the day you get in touch.
Email: info@greenlightps.ie
Phone: 01 450 9792
Nearly 20 years. 81 people. A lot of them started exactly where you are now.
Experienced teams. Built to deliver.