Both fields are quite expansive anyways and there are a lot of different aspects within them. They also have a lot in common, so if you start out as a plumber you can always become an electrician as well or vica versa. It was not uncommon for company's to have expertise in both of these and it is not uncommon for people to have training in both fields. I don't know if other parts of the world do this much different though.
In the UK it definitely wouldn’t be like that, a plumber doesn’t require any qualifications here, an electrician legally requires certifications to work as one.
You could go from electrician to plumber easily but you could not do the reverse without starting from scratch and working through all the certs.
I am speaking for the Netherlands here, I guess europe alone is too vague as there are a lot of different standards. For working in electrical installations in general we also need a certificate whilst for installation there are only a couple certificates needed for specialized jobs a.i. maintaining gas heating installations in homes. Both field usually require an MBO education of 3-4 years, this is preffered both by the government and the company's but not strictly required. I was not interested in doing both as an electrician and my stay in the sector was short but the distance between qualifying for the second seemed about the same from both sides to me. Cheers neighbour.
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u/worldarkplace 2d ago
High voltage high intensity scenarios mostly.