Guide on How to Become an Electrical Estimator

The need for electrical services at residential and commercial properties will never lessen. Keeping that in mind, there are many new businesses signing up to meet customers’ needs for the repair, maintenance, and replacement of electronics.

Such businesses need electrical estimators to be part of their team and assess the overall cost of the service requests. Most times, businesses need to send an estimated price to the customer to let them analyze and decide on hiring a service provider. So, creating an estimate that is not too low nor too high on bids is important to land the job.

Hence, a career as an electrical estimator can be a good pick if you want to work in the electrical industry. Moreover, you can start your own electrical business with the experience of making perfect estimates and hiring proficient electricians and technicians.

To help you kickstart this fruitful career path, this article explains the pathway to how to become an electrical estimator. A thorough overview will help you pursuing this path with clarity.

What is an Electrical Estimator Responsible for?

Electrical estimators are professionals with adequate knowledge of electrical systems. They are responsible for preparing an approximate cost of all the electrical installations, repairs, and maintenance work conducted by respective companies. Such professionals have expertise in determining the cost for both industrial and residential projects.

In accordance with that, electrical estimators analyze blueprints and installation plans to determine the length of wires needed. Along with that, they will also specify the cost of every electrical component, material, and fixture needed for a particular project, as per the installation plan.

Further, they also deal with changing the estimating procedures to minimize the inconsistencies between the estimated and actual costs. Most electrical estimators obtain accuracy in their estimations with growing work experience. So, you needn’t worry about starting as a perfect estimator for electrical projects, but be open to learning and adapting.

In their job of preparing estimates, electrical contracting business software such as InvoiceOwl can be of utmost help. It allows you to feed in customer details directly from the stored database and enter the values to get it ready for sending to the customer in no time.

Some of the other common responsibilities that are required in electrical estimating careers are:

• Establishing customer satisfaction
• Securing high CSI scores
• Designing plans for power, HVAC, and lighting
• Reducing the cost of installation by implementing MEP (mechanical, engineering, and plumbing) systems
• Providing the material list
• Using AutoCAD for riser diagrams, wiring diagrams, and electrical drafting
• Negotiating with customers for fair settlements
• Completing designs for industrial electrical controls
• Aware about current electrician blogs and resources to follow as an electrical estimator

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What are the Requirements to Become an Electrical Estimator?

There are certain qualifications that you must possess for pursuing a career in electrical estimating.

Education

The electrical estimators must have at least a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, construction management, project management, or other related fields. These education programs have coursework that defines basic engineering principles, building codes, safety regulations, and construction methods.

If you pursued electrical engineering for your bachelor’s degree, then you are already of the electrical technicalities, which will help you further while you get trained to become an electrical estimator.

Mandatory training and experience

Many electrical estimators get on-job training from experienced colleagues or assigned supervisors in their respective companies. And this training will help you learn all the processes being followed by the company for preparing price estimates. Moreover, you will also get used to the software your company wants you to use for electrical estimating jobs.

If you have an experience as a journeyman electrician with the idea of handling estimates for dedicated jobs, then your candidature will stand out among others.

Certifications

You don’t need any mandatory certifications to work as an electrical estimator. However, having certain credentials in your resume will make your candidature more visible to employers.

Some of the certifcations that you can prefer to obtain in the pursuit of becoming an electrical estimator are:

• Certified Construction Manager (CCM) by CMCI
• Engineer in Training Certification (EIT) by NCEES
• Certified Estimating Professional (CPE) by AACE
• Master Project Manager (MPM) by AAPM
• Certified Cost Estimator/Analyst (CCE/A) by ICEAA

How to Become an Electrical Estimator?

Now that you are aware of all the basic educational and experience-related requirements to apply for the post of an electrical estimator, it is imperative you learn what will get you selected over other candidates:

1. Qualify yourself with formal training or apprenticeships

Formal training in the US is specified as apprenticeships which give you paid training under a supervisor. After completing your education in pursuit of joining an electrical estimation career, it is time to keep looking for apprenticeships or formal training programs.

In some schools or colleges, these apprenticeships are inclusive in the curriculum. If it is not, you can look for them just like you search for jobs. Most companies hiring interns or apprentices will mention the same in their job description, whereas some firms mention the requirement for a “Junior Estimator”, which implies formal training for you.

So, grab these training opportunities and strengthen your candidature to be accountable as professional estimators and get recruited at higher pay.

2. Develop electrical estimating attributes

Gaining experience as a journeyman electrician, having an electrical engineering degree, or possessing a formal training certification is one thing. Nevertheless, obtaining the electrical estimating attributes is different, which you must acquire on priority. These key aspects resemble both hard and soft skills.

Hard skills are the abilities that you can teach and can be measured. For instance, your skillset with computer software or mathematics is called hard skills. Soft skills are traits that help you be proficient at your job. The soft skills include communication skills, leadership qualities, project management ability, and teamwork potential.

Some of the hard skills will be easy for an electrical estimator aspirant to master throughout the journey of education and training. Even so, you can still move out of the curriculum and improve computer literacy and mathematical skills, which are crucial for cost estimating.

Apart from that, using dedicated estimating software solutions such as InvoiceOwl for preparing price estimates is also an important skill for electrical estimators to thrive in this profession.

You must groom yourself out of the core studies to achieve soft skills. You must practice communication, project management, focus, IT aptitude, and other personality development skills to be the best in this job.

3. Network and seek opportunities

It is one of the key skills or attributes important for an individual to implement right beside executing electrical estimator jobs. The entire electrical estimating industry is based on networking and professional relationships. You need to expand your connections and get in touch with more people in this industry.

You can connect with other established estimators other than your formal training supervisor to get help in some way or the other. Join local groups on social media platforms such as Facebook or LinkedIn to connect with a community of electrical estimators. You never know when someone will lead you to an important connection for escalating your career growth.

One of the most crucial ideologies of networking as a cost estimator is that you must be able to reciprocate. Keep yourself available to contribute to the community while seeking knowledge of it.

4. Find a mentor for yourself

In your entire journey of studying, training, and applying for electrical estimator jobs, you will need a mentor to guide you through the processes easily. You can always do that yourself, but understanding the process will consume much of your preparation time.

Therefore, it is better to seek help from a mentor who is already aware of the rightful approaches for individuals to pursue a career as electrical estimators. Look for a mentor at coaching institutions or on Edu-tech platforms to suit yourself with the motivation and preparedness to pursue this career.

Ask your mentors to help you with preparing a guide map to get experience in selecting electrical fields, try to understand the electrician licensing requirements and get details of obtaining necessary certifications before turning up for apprentices and jobs.

How Much do Electrical Estimators Make?

The average salary for electrical estimators is $70,612 per year. If you have experience in the field before joining as a cost estimating employee for an electrical company, you might earn more than the average salary stated above.

As per the statistics, if you stay in this field and industry for around 5 to 10 years, your salary might go up to $150,000 yearly. It is because 5 to 10 years is enough to give you ample experience in this profession.

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Conclusion

Every step and suggestion in this article will take you closer to achieving success in being an electrical estimator. You must have all the degrees and training certifications intact to make your candidature valid. Keep up with the key attributes, without which you can’t be a good estimator.

Being an electrical estimator will advance you in the path of adapting your core operating sector. With ample experience in this field, you can eventually open up your own electrical business in the future. And when you do that, your expertise in price estimation will help you find like-minded candidates.

Meanwhile, remember that electrical businesses no longer use manual procedures to prepare an estimate. So, it will be easy for you to get estimates through software that has pre-set templates. InvoiceOwl is one option you can prefer that offers the best invoice templates and impeccable features to speed up the estimation process.

Even if you are a freelance electrical estimator, you can still use InvoiceOwl to complete your project requests with high efficiency.