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More people want sky than an alarm,more people will pay 100 a month for sky and moan at 100 a year for an alarm etc etc

if you've no preconceived ideas of how something should work why waste your efforts with a 9600 ? If you learn the most commonly used commercial panel you'll most likely get a start on servicing at a regional or national co. If a certain national can train ex bus drivers or employ "2 screw" the Forest Gump of alarms, I'm certain Nero the Sky Man will do just fine

I know this is mainly a young mans game but jeez 28 mature engineer? It's refreshing to read that the OP is 37 and still prepared to have a go at something new. Best of luck to you mate.

It really depends on what the pay is in Essex for a good engineer. Expect anything between 16k and 21k as a trainee wage, you can pick it up quite quickly I have a mature engineer (28yrs old) started on £20k been with me a year/18 months and he is on £26k plus OTE (about £30k overall). His money started going up quite quickly once he started installing on his own. It really depends on how fast you can pick it up, couple of years I would expect to see a reasonable engineer. Some I know have been doing it from years and are still useless.

Send your CV out to local companies, if your happy to take a pay cut while training this is the best way to get into this industry. There are many things to learn in this industry that you will not learn from a text book or classroom. Panel wiring for instance originally it was two circuit per device then there was EOL and every manufacturers use their own combination of EOL then there is ID biscuit, and other manufacturers have their own ID type systems. There are hundreds of different panels out there and to be a worthy engineer you need to know what your doing with all of them, its no good turning up at Mr& Mrs Smiths and saying sorry this panel wasnt covered in the Tavcom course we need to change the panel. Most co's will take on mature trainees with a clean drivers license, you are more likely to turn up everyday and more willing to graft in most cases.

There's no future working for sky. No one will have a dish in ten years or even a set top box. We'll all have an app in our smart TVs. Sky Q is being launched without a dish next year. Need I say anymore.

do a postcode check on the NSI.org website and the SSAIB website, these are approved installers so theoretically should provide good training