With the new domestic electrician grade ECS card now available and achievable through the normal apprenticeship route or via the experienced worker option, it may be a question that might be asked by some enthusiastic site gate keeper.
From my experience as an erstwhile contractor and as a part-time tutor in the electrical installation sector (now in year 31), I often found the guys coming from the general domestic side as being reasonably well switched on, particularly on the regulatory front. But confined to the domestic sector, operative experience in three-phase installations and wiring systems such as steel conduit is likely to be absent or minimal at best. Way back when I was a general electrical contractor, I used the guys as was appropriate, Sean was as neat and tidy as they come and speedy with it, but his abilities were twin and earth, sockets, switches and beautifully dressed consumer units. Kevin, on the other hand, was the motor man, any call we got about motors, Kevin was the man to send. I had another 18 chaps of various capabilities and skills to allocate as efficiently as possible to our wide base of clients and job-types.
However, whilst it wasn't common, when needs must, Sean and Kevin (and guys like them with different skill sets) could end up on the same job for long periods. Had some gate keeper or competence bean counter prevented me from using Sean's skills on a commercial or industrial job, it would have have de-railed my ability to run an efficient business.
Maybe it would be better to have an accreditation like a NVQ L3 to acknowledge competence in a basic skill set rather than to have two separate camps on the installation side. Interestingly, the domestic qualification is, in my opinion, more stretching.
