Moving to France: Is there work for a builder??

[AndyfloAndrew & Felicity]

Couple with building experience/skills, looking at moving to France. Would be looking for work in renovation/construction. Any information gratefully received esp. on availability of work.

[AnnH]

To work legally you must register, this involves having your certificates (i.e city & guilds) or an attestation (reference) translated by an authorised person and then this has to be agreed by your prefecture, after that you can register your business for those trades that have been authorised.  Your attestation should show that you have competent experience in your chosen field(s) for at least the past 3 years.  As I am not sure which department you are thinking of moving to I cannot comment on whether there is much work or not.  Hope this is of use.

[Mysfloss]

Do you mean setting up a business or working for someone?

[ChezShells]

From what i've experienced while we have been here is

you'll be busy

We live in a region that has many English that have moved permanently and find it difficult to find a builder that can start within a few week or months.

 

Sent you a PM

[Patf]

I agree with everyone who's already posted : get yourself set up as a bona fide enterprise and you will have no problem finding work, at least where we are ( Gers 32 ). Pat. 

[Dick Smith]

Get registered, charge sensible prices for a decent job and TURN UP ON TIME (oh how the frustration shows!) and you'll not be rich, but you will do OK.

[AndyfloAndrew & Felicity]

Thank you to everyone who has posted information for us. Its all very useful. In more detail, what we are aiming to do is to have a holiday in France (though which part we haven't decided yet) to survey the area, check out some property and the work situation and maybe do some work whilst we are there. The business is run on a self-employed basis with skills in many areas of construction and renovation.

Any further information would be gratefully appreciated. And once again thank you for your previous replies.

[Val_2]

As previously said there is plenty of building work in France for properly registered and insured artisans who turn up on time and do a good job and do not rip their clients off. Remember that France is completely different to the UK, there will be hefty social charges for you and if you take on employees they have to have written contracts and cannot be used as temporary labour like the UK day to day as and when needed, and their charges will also add to your social burden so you need to be turning over a fair bit each month which means you will never be as rich as you could be in the UK. Employees also will be restricted to 35/39 hour week as over that is too expensive for small businesses to afford. Choose your area well and remember that there will also be the local french builders to compete with,a lot of whom will have the local market already sewn up and a foreigner will find it a bit harder to compete especially if they do not speak good french.