British Expats - Gas/Oil Service Eng

...........and in trundles the plumber and gasfitter's wifey. :p

Hi there.

Your first port of call is the PGDB. Please click the link & then contact them

It's not a case of being able to get your UK quals transferred . That's not how it works. New Zealand and the PGDB don't just accept overseas quals.

What happens is that you send in your stuff ( proof of apprenticeship, qualifications, work exp.) and they will assess all that and decide whether they believe the UK quals match the NZ standards. It's a preliminary assessment.

If the pre-assessment is positive, then your UK quals are partially recognised & they will invite you to take NZ registration in order to become a fully NZ recognised , registered tradesman.

Until that happened you could work on a form of restricted licence and all your work would need to be 100% supervised and signed off. Rather like that of an apprentice in training .

To become fully NZ registered one would need to sit a 3 hour exam and take a practical course and assessment . This tkes several days and a few thousand dollars , .

Being NZ registered doesn't mean you can work for yourself. For that there is another craftsman exam .

Here in Nelson work is quiet. That doesn't necessarily mean there is no work and no vacancies . Just that work is on the quiet side. Husband has had to take leave and there have been some short working weeks. From what we here, it is quiet for the trades all over NZ at the moment . It's been this way for at least a year now.

Husband works on new build houses & commercial properties + maintenance work.
There isn't much gas work up here and no reticulated supply so it may be that another area of NZ with a piped gas supply will have more work around.