More than mortar and bricks: the bricklayer's profession

Bricklayers have to be able to do more than lay one brick on another. The profession has changed, is highly specialised these days and, at the same time, very diverse. The job prospects are good in these times of skilled labour shortage.

On a construction site, the day begins early. But that never was a problem for bricklayer apprentice Marlon Blandow. His band meets at half past six in the morning to proceed to the construction site. They currently are building a warehouse for a company.

Marlon's task today: making baskets. So he ignores the bricklayer's trowel for now, picks up wire and pliers and makes a so-called basket out of iron rods. This will later be included in a pillar that will be filled with concrete. "Only the iron makes the pillar stable", Marlon knows.

The 25-year old has been learning the bricklayer's trade for two years now. "I very much come from a bricklayer family", he explains. "My grandfather is a bricklayer, my uncle is a bricklayer. So I soon knew that I, too, wanted to work on construction sites." He needed to write only one application to obtain his apprenticeship placement with a building firm that sells houses ready for occupation. Marlon took this into consideration when choosing the company for his vocational education and training. In such a business he learns everything a bricklayer needs to know. The range of tasks for apprentices is accordingly diversified.

"Many think it is easy to erect a wall. I thought so, too. But the walls resulting from my first attempts were crooked", Marlon remembers. Now he knows all the tricks in the book. And he knows how to pour concrete for a ceiling, how to construct brick facing and what to take into consideration regarding interior and exterior walls. He knows about the various building materials and has learnt how to mix the mortar.


Marlon's boss Lutz Hollman says that the apprentices need to first learn the theoretical basic knowledge of their trade, before they can master all that. This is why he did not see much of his apprentice especially in the first training year. Most of his time was spent at the vocational college. Yet in the second and third training year, Marlon is increasingly able to contribute in his employer's business. And he does, Hollmann is pleased to see. "Marlon sees what there is to do. That characterises him favourably."

When it comes to hiring his apprentices, the building contractor places less attention to school grades. What is important for him is that he can rely on the apprentices and that they fit into the team. He has no patience for a hooligan, since the bands have to co-operate on the construction site every day. For this, they need to get on with each other. Also, applicants need a certain degree of technical understanding. "They need to be able to imagine what the house will look like in the end", says Hollmann.

During their vocational education and training provision, the bricklayer apprentices moreover attend inter-company vocational training courses, where the various trades exchange their knowledge. Tilers, roofers, carpenters, bricklayers: they all learn from each other.

Hollmann thinks this is a good idea, for that way the bricklayer apprentice obtains a different view of his tasks on the construction site, with his own work improving as a result. "Previously, bricklayers have done their own tiling work or poured a floor. They hardly do that anymore these days. Yet it is nonetheless good if they know how to do it", Hollmann thinks.

Marlon rarely encounters female bricklayers on a construction site. According to the German Federal Statistical Office, the approximately 4,000 bricklayer apprentices in 2012 included only two dozen women. Instead, several different languages may be heard on a construction site, for five per cent of budding bricklayers come from abroad to receive their training here.

Increased exchange with other countries has been a feature also in the bricklayer's trade for several years, for example, via the Erasmus+ programme, which organises and funds the exchange of apprentices from all trades. Italy is particularly interesting for German bricklayer apprentices, says Berthold Hübers from the German Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training in Bonn. "There, they learn preservation work on antique buildings, which are rather less common in Germany."

Marlon enjoys working on a construction site. "I like to see what I have achieved at the end of the day", he says. Even so, he does not envision himself as a journeyman bricklayer in ten years' time. He can imagine to either study towards a master craftsman diploma or to start a university course to become a construction engineer or architect. One day, he wants to build his own houses and plan his own construction sites. That he misses in his bricklayer's profession.

Lutz Hollmann raises his eyebrows in worry upon hearing this. He would like to retain Marlon as a journeyman bricklayer after completion of his apprenticeship. Already it is difficult to find good bricklayers, says the entrepreneur. The job prospects are very good in view of the skilled labour shortage Hollmann predicts.

Even today, businesses are ready to spend good money on a bricklayer, says Lutz Hollmann. At an hourly wage of easily 17 euros, a journeyman makes a gross income of almost 3,000 euros a month in Lower Saxony", he calculates. That is the standard tariff.

Apprentices likewise earn well. In his second year of training, Marlon makes a good 800 euros a month. He has never yet regretted his choice of occupation. "I remain true to the construction industry, because I find it exciting", he says and, with a grin, picks up the bricklayer's trowel after all. "There's a wall that needs building."