A former city worker has shown it's never too late to change career path, after becoming a plumber aged 43.

Adam Morris from Edgware worked in London for more than 20 years in the Lloyds insurance market. However, a desire to be his own boss led him to start setting up his own business, having retrained as a plumber.

“All my life I had worked as an employee for someone else and I wanted to become self-employed,” Mr Morris explained. “I did lots of research into plumbing and read up on it a great deal. I’ve always been a practical, handy person and plumbing has always been a keen interest of mine.”

Mr Morris trained with Train4Trade Skills and has completed the practical part of his qualification through a company called ERR, which specialises in training mature career changers.

He continued: “It was definitely strange going back to the books at first. It took a while to get my head around all the new terminology, but I stuck with it and did my own extra research to help me through.”

Taking advantage of ERR’s work experience offer, Mr Morris was able to complete his NVQ level 2 in plumbing. Having impressed assessors with his plumbing work at The Grange development in Dunstable, he has passed his qualification and has started to expand his own plumbing business.

A&G Plumbing Services is based in Barnet, and is expanding its customer base to include surrounding London boroughs. Now, Mr Morris is continuing his studies at Level 3 to assist in growing the business.

“It’s been tiring at times, juggling retraining and normal life, but I’ve had so much support,” he said. “My wife has been there every step of the way and ERR’s support service has helped me complete my studies and find out more about setting up my own business.

“I’ve also been shadowing a local plumber to get more experience and I am implementing ways to expand my own business.”