Recently the media has been focusing on an increasing number of ex-armed services personnel and their struggle to reintegrate into normal civilian life, even after many months, or even years have elapsed since leaving active duty. The problem has been highlighted because of the UK's still fragile recovery from recession and the current severe government cutbacks being enacted across many public sector services.The time-honoured and traditional route for ex-Armed Forces personnel to find a new lease of life through meaningful employment is by entering the construction industry. It is the obvious path to consider since many personnel were trained in aspects of engineering and will already have developed a practical, hands-on problem solving approach which lends itself very easily retraining to be a plumber or learning to become an electrician.When it comes to tasks like installing boilers, bending pipes and laying lead roofing, being physically fit is of course, a great advantage, too! Today, the rolling out of renewable energy means it's becoming increasingly important to know how to install the new appliances such as heat pumps or PV solar technology. It could be just the kind of practical challenge that a trained army serviceman would most likely find satisfying and gives renewed hope and impetus to retraining for radically improving employment prospects.AbleSkills are long standing specialists in providing service personnel with the requisite skills training who can begin courses at multiskills level or go straight on to a City and Guilds NVQ Level 2 course in plumbing or an electrical NVQ, with options to go onto gas training.Several schemes are available to help those students with financial support where required and The Enhanced Learning Credits Scheme (ELC) is aimed at eligible ex-Armed Forces students who are taking their initial educational or vocational training further onto Level 3 or above.In addition, Service Leavers will be able to use their Individual Resettlement Training Cost (IRTC) grant in connection with Enhanced Learning Credit (ELC) to pay for the same higher level qualification courses.AbleSkills have a number of Assessors and Internal verifiers who are ex-servicemen themselves and have also taught within the services! They will help to guide and help make the resettlement process, which can be lengthy and complicated, as smooth as possible - the first job will be to deal with the MOD Form 1746, upon arrival!So, whether there is a 20 or 35 days time allocation, there are always a number of course options with different durations, even weekend training available. In no time at all, the training begins and future prospects start to look better already!