The trades career tier list, that's what we're gonna be talking about today and there is a lot to go over in this video and I don't want it to be like 30 minutes long. So I'm gonna jump right into it and get right on with the list. I believe that trades are underrated and I think they're making a huge comeback and as long as you never forget to immediately gently tap the like button, I will explain exactly why.  Now these X factors generally include stuff like how easy it would be to automate a job or outsource a job or how well the skills that you learn in a certain job could translate to other industries or other careers. And in this video, I'm gonna be ranking all of these different trade careers from S tier which is extremely good to F tier which is bad. I'm not gonna have time to go over all of these different factors because that would make the video like an hour and a half long. So if you wanna know that, you're gonna have to watch some of my other videos. And please, if you think I'm wrong on any of these, go ahead, comment down below exactly why you think I'm wrong. Maybe you're right about it. Maybe we all can learn something. All right, first one on the list is going to be welder. This is one where the pay honestly isn't all that good if you just get hired for it. A lot of the time it's gonna end up being kind of seasonal or where you just get hired for a job and then you know you do it for a few months and you're not really needed anymore. This one of course can be really good if you're working in certain industries like the natural gas industry. There's also a high ceiling in terms of the level of skill. So there's really basic welding and then there's like above basic welding and it can get really, really high in terms of your level of skill. All the way to the point where you're like an underwater welder where you're certified in diving and like all kinds of crazy stuff like that. So this is one of those skills where if you get really good at it and you get a little bit entrepreneurial, you start your own business, maybe you buy your own rig for instance, you can make a really good amount of money. But when it comes to just getting hired for a job, it's decent but not amazing. This one is gonna go into C tier. Next one on the list is going to be a heavy equipment operator. With this one you're gonna be making around $46,000 a year. It's growing at about 10% and you're gonna need to be licensed plus you're gonna need to have an apprenticeship. And basically you are gonna be driving around heavy machinery. Anything from like big tractors to cranes. Now depending on your specialty, the pay is going to vary quite a bit. So for instance, there are certain types of crane operators that can make a ridiculous amount of money. However, they're also dealing with a high stress environment.  This is a pretty good one though. I'm gonna go ahead and put it in B tier. Next one on the list is going to be a plumber. They make around $53,000 a year. You do need to be licensed and it does require an apprenticeship generally speaking and it's growing at about 14% which is really, really good. Now as a plumber you're gonna be installing and repairing pipes that carry liquids and gases. Not only that but we are also very, very neat. Now one of the great things about being a plumber is you can pretty much get a job no matter where you go. A lot of the careers on this list can be kind of like a little bit seasonal where you might have a lot of work during a certain time of the year and not much work over other times of the year. Or they might be jobs where you're gonna have to move around a lot. But the great thing about being a plumber is you can probably get a job pretty much no matter where you live in the United States. When it comes to being in the trades I always say that it's a very good idea for you to start your own business as soon as you possibly can because that's where the real money is. Even if you're just working on your own if you have your own business you can make way more money than if you were working for somebody else. And plumber is a perfect example of this. So even though it says they make around $53,000 a year if you own your own business you can very, very easily make over six figures a year. Plumber is gonna go into A tier. Next one on the list is going to be HVAC Technician. That stands for Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning. HVAC techs make around $47,000 a year and this one's growing at about 13%. These are the people that keep your heater going in the winter and your air conditioning going in the summer. Now my brother owns an HVAC business so I know a little bit more than the average person about this. It is somewhat seasonal. You're probably gonna make more money in the winter than you are during the summer months but again, that could be different depending on where you live. So for instance, you might make more money in the summer months if you live in Miami. Now you can see the seasonal nature of the business as a pro or a con. It's kind of a pro just because of the fact that you kind of have a busy season where you know you're gonna be busy and then you have kind of a slower season where you can go on vacations and kind of just take it easy. It can create difficulties when it comes to scaling a business. So for instance, if you hire people in order to accommodate all the work you need to get done during the busy season a lot of the times those people will not be able to get enough hours during the slow season. So that can make scaling a business a little bit tricky. A lot of the trades are somewhat taxing on your body and I would say HVAC is a little bit taxing but it's definitely not one of the worst ones. Overall, I'm gonna go ahead and put this one into A tier. Number six on the list is going to be dental hygienist and yes, this one is actually a trade career technically. They make around $74,000 a year. It does require an apprenticeship, a license and it's growing at around 11%. Now this one, you are going to be assisting dentists. You're gonna be doing things like cleaning and educating patients on dental health. So the cons of this one is you're gonna be all up in people's mouths, which that's gross. This one does take around three years to get into. So it's a little bit longer than some of these other ones but it's also a lot less physical than a lot of the other ones on the list. So you probably would be able to be a dental hygienist for a longer amount of time. I know somebody personally who is a dental hygienist. She works about 40 hours a week and she makes six figures a year. A lot of dental hygienists do not work 40 hours a week and so they make a little bit less than six figures but I would say this number 74,000 is probably on the low side. I will say that most dental hygienists that are very successful are going to be and I'm not saying whether this is right or wrong but it's just a fact. They're going to be young, pretty women who are kind of extroverted. Again, not saying that's right or wrong but that tends to be the people who are successful as dental hygienists. Overall, I'm going to go ahead and put this one into a tier. Next one on the list is going to be an elevator installer or repairer. They make around $79,000 a year. It does require an apprenticeship as well as licensure and it's growing at around 10% which is great.  Basically anything that moves people up or down. So with this one you're probably going to be on call quite a bit. I remember one time when I lived in Las Vegas I got stuck in an elevator and an elevator repair guy had to come and rescue me. This was pretty late at night so the poor guy probably got interrupted from watching like late night news or whatever he was watching and he came and he got the person I was stuck with in the elevator out of the elevator and it was happily ever after. But overall this can be a really good one. It's going to go ahead and go into a tier. And I will also mention that this is one of the less physically taxing ones on the entire list. Next one on the list is going to be an electrician. They make around $55,000 a year. It does require apprenticeship as well as licensure and it's growing at around 10%. So some of the cons of this one is that you are going to be dealing with electricity all the time. That can be extremely dangerous. However, there are a ton of pros to this one. Being an electrician is definitely going to be one of the less physically taxing trade careers. That means that if you want to you could probably be an electrician into your 60s and 70s. This is a great one. I'm going to go ahead and put it into a tier. Next one on the list is going to be a geological and petroleum technician. They make around $53,000 a year. No apprenticeship, no licensure needed and it's growing at around 7%. Now they're going to be working in the natural gas industry and I've talked about this before. Generally speaking, people who work in this industry get paid really, really well. They're going to be supporting scientists and engineers in extracting natural resources. Now some of the cons to this one is that you'll likely have to move to an area where some of these companies exist. So you might not be living in your ideal situation, unfortunately. However, you're going to be getting paid really, really well and there's going to be a lot of opportunity. This one is going to go into S tier. Next one on the list is going to be a sonographer. They make around $67,000 a year and it's a 14% growth. They also don't have to do an apprenticeship or a licensure which is probably a pro just because of the fact that that can take a long time. They're going to be operating special imaging equipment so they're going to be doing things like ultrasounds. There's honestly not that many cons with this career. It's not going to be as physically taxing as a lot of the other trade careers. And yes, this is technically a trade career. I know in my other video people commented that's not a trade career. No, this one is technically a trade career. So this one, you're going to have a lot of the upside of a trade career where you don't have to go to college or anything like that. You can just pretty much go straight into your profession without a lot of the downsides that you commonly find in trade careers such as having a lot of physical issues. This one is definitely going into S tier. Next one on the list is going to be a radiation therapist. They make around $82,000 a year. It does require licensure but no apprenticeship and it's growing at about 9%. Now as a radiation therapist, you would be treating cancer as well as other diseases with radiation therapy. This can be a really tough one emotionally so you do have to be somebody who's pretty tough emotionally because you're going to be around people who are sick all day long. However, it can be extremely rewarding because you're going to be helping people who are sick and in a time of need. Overall, this one is going to go into S tier. Next one on the list is going to be a logger. They make around $40,000 a year and the projected growth is negative 12%. This one is extremely tough on you physically. It's also extremely dangerous. It's one of the most dangerous careers you can possibly get into. It also doesn't pay nearly as well as a lot of the other ones on this list. This one is going to definitely go into F tier. Next one on the list is going to be dock worker. They're going to get paid around $28,000 a year. The projected growth is around 7%. Now they're also known as longshoremen. That's kind of another word for them and it's actually a really common job. There's over 2 million longshoremen in the United States. You're going to be unloading huge cargo ships. It's a very strenuous backbreaking type of job. It's also very dangerous. It leads to a lot of injuries and deaths. This is another one that in my opinion, unfortunately, it's going to have to go into a pretty low tier. I mean $28,000 a year. Are you kidding me? They need to get paid more than that.  This one goes into F tier. Next one on the list is going to be a roofer. They make around $39,000 a year. They're growing at about 11%. Now roofers are going to install, repair and replace roofs. A lot of the time they're going to be up on the roof out in the sun. It can be a pretty difficult job. You're going to be sweating buckets.  It's also relatively dangerous.  Still, it's a little bit better than the other two. It has a decent growth rate. So I'm going to go ahead and put this one into D tier. Next one on the list is going to be a construction laborer. So they're going to make around $35,000 a year. It's growing at 12%. And there's over 1 million jobs available. Now this is an extremely physically demanding job. There's probably going to be a lot of injuries. And on top of the injury rate, it also has a lot of deaths, unfortunately. Now this one kind of goes in that same category where they're going to get paid decently well, but honestly probably not as good as they should. I'm going to go ahead and put this one into D tier. Next one on the list is going to be an automobile mechanic. They make around $40,000 a year. They're growing at about 6.1%. And there's around 648,000 jobs available here in the US. Now I would say out of all the different types of trades, you could argue this is somewhere in the middle when it comes to how physically demanding it is. Probably not going to be as many deaths and not as many serious injuries as some of the other ones that I mentioned on this list. Now this is a very popular job. A lot of people really love working on cars. There can be a lot of opportunity here, especially if you own your own business. This one is just going to squeak into C tier. I would say welder is probably a little bit better than mechanic in terms of the opportunities. But overall, I'm going to go ahead and put it in C tier. If you haven't done it already, make sure to gently tap the like button, hit the subscribe button, ring the notification bell and comment down below any thoughts, comments, criticisms, et cetera that you have on the video. And whatever you do, don't forget to check out my other videos right here. I made them just for you.


Our universe is a cold and terrible one, replete with horror, the very existence of which phrase the boundaries of our minds. Maleficent Xenos creatures predatory races from the great dark beyond our galaxy, and baleful outer intelligences from unreality itself compete with each other to feast upon the meat of our human flesh and the strained sanity of our human minds. One needs unshakable fortitude to simply be aware of the existences of these sundry insidious horrors, much less to study them in any detail. Yet such a course must be undertaken if humanity is to have any hope of defeating those that would undo all we have wrought and see us cast down at their feet. Many before I have laboured at this task, some to their thankless end, their minds shattered by the scope of what they must face. It is with no small amount of trepidation I undertake such a thing, as many of my records previous have seen me removed from the dreadful nature of my subjects by the gulf of time. Not so with the subjects of this. In an effort to better aid the cause of our precipitous imperium, I turn my attention to an altogether more current matter, building upon the subjects of those predecessors of my order with whatever new information and study has become extant. Such action is not common in the imperium, laboured as we have been for millennia with the heavy-handed and puritanical redactionism of the Ordos of the most holy Inquisition. But I do what I must, the sanctity and glory of him upon Terra. To that end, the subjects of this record present an almost utterly unknown yet incredibly potent threat to imperial security. Their reappearances have herald almost nothing but doom for our race, for one was essential in the breaking of the Eye, the destruction of the Gate, the sundering of lost, mourned Cadia. Know then that this is a record of the Cyclopean stellar mysteries, those mighty and unknowable citadels of the Void, the Blackstone Fortresses. Despite what the Blackstone Fortresses are, their nature, their history, their provenance, is a matter not settled amongst the various bodies of the Imperium responsible for the knowledge of such things. To chronicles such as I, they have apparently always existed, or at the very least their origin is buried so far in the depths of human prehistory as to be almost impossibly ancient. To the tech priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus, they represent technology both unmatched and deeply heretical in its blasphemous advancement, a source of both deep religious concern as an affront to the machine god, but also of absolute fascination for the sheer incredible power they represent. To the Ordos of the Inquisition, in particular the Ordos Enos, they are a source of deep concern for the mystery of their origin, as surely whatever species is capable of constructing such blasphemies is one of unparalleled power and threat to our Imperium. And to the, shall we say, less scrupulous of the rogue trader dynasties, they represent the possibility of lost archaeotech fabulous wealth and limitless fame. What we know is thus. The Blackstone Fortress is a space-born citadel, larger than almost any void station or ecology or military installation the Imperium has ever crafted. It clips even the phallax, the space-faring fortress monastery of the Imperial Fists Astartes chapter, and in scope rival even some of the hideous Eildare craft worlds. Their origins are a complete mystery to the Imperium, though theories therein will be accounted for later in this record and in subsequent records, for they predate this empire of ours and appear in the earliest surviving records of the exploration of the sectors they were discovered in. Their power is simply horrifying. They seem to possess no motive force of their own, and in fact lay dormant until the advent of the Twelfth Black Crusade, when their terrible potential was finally revealed to the galaxy. It was in the Gothic sector, in segmentum obscurus, during that region's colonization in the 33rd millennium, that the fortresses were first discovered, scattered in the void, dark, cold and silent. The Imperium, no stranger to encountering artifacts of long dead worlds and long lost to Xenos races, could however provide absolutely no reliable estimate on their age, as all means of dating available to explorator teams returned wildly contradictory results, ranging from the tens of thousands of years to well into hundreds of millions of years, stretching into the epochs where even the existence of sentient life was unconfirmed. The fortresses most advanced systems were entirely dormant, bereft of life, and remained so, despite countless Adeptus Mechanicus attempts to revive them and bring them to full power. That being said, the more passive systems, such as artificial gravity, atmospheric processing, general life support, remained functional, and well within tolerance ranges for the human baseline, allowing the imperial elements in the Gothic sector to utilize the six fortresses discovered as stellar bases of operation, and void fortification hardpoints in wider system defense grids. As time went on, the Blackstone Fortresses became the locus of battle fleet Gothic's operations, as the Mechanicus were more and more successful in mounting imperial weaponry to their blasphemous power grids, and opening up chambers to serve as flight decks and naval dry docks. The six became, with the exception of the imperial-built station Port Moor, the identifiers for the sub-sectors of the Gothic sector itself. Centuries and millennia were to pass. The fortresses slumbered, they became part of imperial life, the focal point of naval operations within the sector. People forgot the questions that had been asked about their origins and purpose, save for the odd-questing Majos. Thousands of years had seen no change, there did not seem to be a reason to care, and then came the gaze of the Dispoiler, the warmaster of the Arch-enemy, Abaddon, Scion of the Arch-Treator Horus Luprachal, master of the Black Legion, the hated Dispoiler himself, had come to learn of the existences and secrets of the fortresses through the effort of his sorcerous cohort, Zarathistan, whose foul visions guided his master to the crone worlds of the Eldari, deep within the volumes of eye space, where the real and the unreal are as one, and hell itself bestrides the material plane. It is not fully known what transpired, when the Dispoiler communed with the predatory warp creatures that hunted through the dead Wraithbone cities of those damned worlds, but fragmentary texts speak of a prophecy, the Penumbra, an ancient Eldari mythic cycle that spoke of six weapons, six talismans of unimaginable power. It can be inferred that, through this dark communion, the Dispoiler came to know of the true nature of the Blackstone Fortresses, and the secrets to their activation and usurpation. The 12th Black Crusade, then the latest in the Dispoiler's massive military actions against the Imperium, can in large part be seen as having an almost singular purpose in mind, namely the capture of these artifacts. One is in no doubt, my colleagues would scorn this reductionist view of such a pivotal moment in the history of segmentum obscurus, and indeed the Imperium. I by no means wish to diminutise the millions that died, or re-smarch the incredible heroism of those who fought tooth and nail to drive off the depredations of the arch enemy, yet to cast the pivotal role the Fortresses played in both the Dispoiler's objective and strategies, with anything other than the utmost importance, is rank naivety. It was not for naught that the Dispoiler bent his will to obtaining two Xenos artifacts of unknown provenance, labelled in the records of Inquisitor Thaddeus Horst as the Hand of Darkness and the Eye of Night. Information on these devices comes entirely from the writings of Horst, who himself was known to have compiled his records from ancient Eldari myths, and Copius adeptus mecanicus Xeno technologis investigations. The picture, even before the disappearance of Inquisitor Horst, is almost laughably incomplete. Their origins are unknown, and only scant documentation of their capabilities are recorded, mostly from the Black Crusade, or Gothic War, as it is also known, itself. The Hand of Darkness appears to possess some sort of horrific atrifying field, causing it to channel warp energy and disintegrate anything the wielder touches. The Eye, meanwhile, projects a beam of ebb and energy recorded as having catastrophic effects on technology and power systems. Just how the Dispoiler utilizes these capabilities, or if the weapons have other, more esoteric properties, is entirely unknown, as Inquisitor Horst's records are, as noted, incomplete. Regardless, the seizure of these artefacts represented some of the first moves the arch-enemy made during the opening stages of the Gothic War, and directly preceded the seizure of the Fortresses. The Dispoiler's fleets hit each of the major Imperial Navy installations in the sector almost simultaneously, with each of the Blackstone Fortresses appearing to suffer complete power failures in the initial stages of each engagement. Three fell to the Dispoiler, and three more remained inert, and in the hands of the scattered Imperial forces of Battlefleet Gothic, it was now that their full potential was unveiled before the horrified eyes of Imperial command. The Blackstone Fortress, when awakened to full operating capacity, is a mobile weapons platform of almost unspeakable destructive potential. Their main weapon batteries, to apply potentially crude Imperial weapons terminology, function as a means through which the energy of the warp itself is channeled into real space. But with pure beams of unreality itself is, it is obvious to say, beyond catastrophic, to anything that lies upon its path. During the two decades of the war, the awakened Blackstone Fortresses proved devastatingly effective in any naval engagements they were part of. Their shields and surface plating appeared completely impregnable to Imperial fleets, and their batteries of warp energy would overwhelm the capital ships' voyage shields in mere minutes. During the Battle of the Tyrannus system, the Spoiler combined the fire of his three fortresses upon the system's star itself. The resulting energy beam, fired even as it was from tens of AUs distant, wrecked apocalyptic damage upon the star, causing it to go supernova and engulf most of the inner planets of the system, and bombard those remaining with utterly lethal waves of stellar radiation. The death toll numbered in the billions. Ironically, it was only the power of the fortresses that would ultimately lead to the Spoiler's eventual defeat at the Battle of Schindelgeist. As an alliance of Eldari and Imperial fleets, betting upon the arch enemy wishing to seize the remaining fortresses in Imperial possession, laid a superbly effective ambush. An attempt by Abaddon to recreate the destruction of Tyrannus' star upon Schindelgeist's own was only thwarted with the sacrifice of an Imperial battleship, guided by her captain into the path of the converging beams and disrupting the flow of warp energies therein. With his fleet being overpowered and his fortresses unable to use their world-killing weaponry, the Warmaster fled, retreating in the direction of Ispace. Strike cruisers of the Angels of Redemption Astartes Chapter were able to catch and board one of the lagging Blackstone Fortresses, and records of what they found aboard, and began to though they are, continue to inform Imperial discourse upon the weapons. The Astartes that made the boarding action reported that the fortresses were manned by no crew, or at least none that were discernible, or mortal. They encountered no resistance, even from shields or point-to-defense weaponry, as their boarding craft approached. The fortress intercepted was fully powered, with the techmarines noting incredible energy build-up, and transmissions, through the now entirely active power grid. Luminescence ran the lengths of the corridors, the dimensions of which refused to correspond to accurately with either aspect's readings or simple visual analysis. The angles appeared wrong. Accounts from the Astartes that deigned to be debriefed by the Adaptus Mechanicus noted that the blasphemous structure appeared to be quixotically alive, perhaps even sentient. This is the limit of what we in the Imperium currently possess in terms of an accurate picture of the interior of a fully activated fortress, for at this point the almost recaptured structure began to disintegrate and self-destruct. As the Angels of Redemption evacuated, reports from the Gothic sector indicated that the three remaining fortresses in Imperial possession were doing the same, becoming forever lost to Imperial hands. Long-range aspect's readings, however, confirmed that the two in the clutches of the arch-enemy continued to power their way deep into the Eye of Terror. Despite what became of them, was unknown at the better part of a millennia, until the events of the previous century, when the close of the 41st millennium itself were to play out in all their dread horror. The dispoiler, keen not to have his possibly greatest military asset usurped, retained at least one of the fortresses for himself, but in his cruel cunning, parted with one gift, it has been reported, for the traitorous Huron, known as Blackheart, dreadmaster of the Red Corsairs, heretic Astartes. Such a monumental favour was given for the tyrant of Babab's unswerving loyalty in the dispoiler's most diabolical scheme yet, the crescendo of his 10,000 year vengeance. The 13th Black Crusade. Now the full details of this horrific war are sealed within a separate record. The deployment of the Blackstone Fortress, Will of Eternity, in the orbit of the citadel world of Cadia, was one of the most crucial parts of that campaign, as was its destruction by the fortress monastery of the Imperial Fists, the mighty spaceport in Phailex, accomplished only at great cost and with the aid of internal sabotage of the fortress itself, conducted by a boarding party from the Space Wolves chapter. Even in death, however, the artifact would serve the dispoiler's aims, as in his monumental spite. The Warmaster of the Arch Enemy turned his broken prize into a final weapon, powering it towards Cadia's surface as an artificial meteorite, sundering the world's very crust, and finally breaking the planet that had defied him for millennia. While the loss of this fortress is undeniably a huge military blow to the dispoiler, the result it achieved is arguably worth the tariff. It would be a pleasing thing at this present moment, for one to be able to proclaim that the Blackstone Fortresses, with only one of the six discovered remaining in existence, have lessened as a threat to the Imperium, but alas, such a statement can no longer be made. Quite separate from the Blackheart's possession of the sixth original fortress, a hated creature only eclipsed in power amongst the hosts of the Arch Enemy by the Warmaster himself, word has reached Terra, from the fringes of Imperial space of a monstrous and terrifying discovery. It would appear that, in the darkest reaches of the space between stars, a new Blackstone Fortress has been found. Deep within the squalls and tempests of the wilderness void, it would appear, given reports, to be slowly awakening, playing host to a bizarre and eclectic host of inhabitants, almost more similar to a space hulk than any of the Blackstone Fortresses previously encountered. Rogue Trader expeditionary forces are, as ever, the first to set their sights on the potential prizes that may be redolent within its unknown depths, and are reportedly making full wake to the Citadel, racing the ponderous pace of Imperial bureaucracy. It's currently entirely unknown the full status, capabilities, or even origin of this fortress, removed as it is by both location, and perhaps provenance, from the others previously encountered. What the future can possibly hold for this new discovery, one cannot even guess. But history, well, history grants one only a grim sense of foreboding. Acolytes record the attached data stamp ident code for an unearthed record concerning the possible origins of the fortresses. The source is of dubious quality at best, and as such has been appended, rather than included in this full record. Until such a time, as we may discourse again, Ave Imperator, Gloria and Excelsis Terra. This video and this channel are made possible through the incredibly kind contributions of my Patreon subscribers. If you'd like to help support the channel, head on over to patreon.com forward slash Oculus imperia. And if you're looking to keep in touch with the channel, get regular updates, you can follow me on twitter, at buttstuffkaiju, or check us out on discord, a link will be in the description and on the channel page.