How to get hired
Drafting has two worlds now: the traditional 2D drafting job at a local consultant or fabricator, and BIM modelling at engineering firms. Both start with the same basics: reading a drawing properly and producing one that a site can build from.
Starting points
- ITI Draughtsman (Civil) or (Mechanical): two-year trades under the Craftsmen Training Scheme. Check your NCVT certificate downloads from NCVT MIS; larger firms ask for it.
- Diploma in civil, mechanical or electrical engineering: the most common qualification in drafting and BIM posts.
- B.Tech graduates often start as BIM engineers or modellers and move to coordination.
Your first job may be at an architect's or structural consultant's office, a steel fabricator (shop drawings), an MEP contractor, or a BIM services company. Pay at small offices is low, but you get a wide range of drawings quickly.
Software, in the order employers want it
- AutoCAD: still the base. Be fast with layers, blocks, xrefs, dimension styles, plotting to scale.
- Revit: the main BIM tool for buildings. Learn one discipline deeply (architecture, structure, or MEP: HVAC, electrical, plumbing and fire).
- Navisworks: combining models from all disciplines and running clash detection.
- BIM 360 / Autodesk Construction Cloud: where shared models and drawings live on international projects.
- Dynamo: scripting to automate Revit tasks; a strong extra for senior modellers.
Mechanical drafting has its own tools (SolidWorks, Inventor, plant design software like AutoCAD Plant 3D), and fabrication shops want Tekla for steel detailing.
The drafting or modelling test
Nearly every employer sets one. Common versions: redraw a given floor plan or section in AutoCAD within an hour, model a small building or an MEP room in Revit from PDFs, or find and resolve clashes in a Navisworks file. Practise against a timer. Keep a portfolio of three to five drawings or model screenshots you made yourself (with client names removed) as a PDF on your phone.
Certifications
Autodesk's certified user and professional exams for AutoCAD and Revit are recognised, but most employers still trust their own test more. A BIM course with a real project in it helps more than one with only exercises. If you join a firm that works to UK projects, you will hear about ISO 19650: it sets how information, file naming and model sharing are managed, and coordinators are expected to know it.
Bonds and training
BIM firms often train freshers for a few months and ask for a service bond in return. Read the amount, the period and what happens if you leave early before you sign; our bond guide explains what is reasonable.
What the work is like
It is desk work, in an office, often with a fixed shift and sometimes a late shift to overlap with UK or Middle East teams. Targets are counted in sheets or model elements per day, and revisions come late and often. Your eyes and back pay for long screen hours, so set up your desk properly.
The ladder: Draughtsman or BIM Modeller, Senior Modeller, BIM Coordinator (running clash meetings across disciplines), then BIM Manager. Coordinators who understand site constraints and engineering logic, not just software, are the ones who move up fastest.