10 Famous People You Never Knew Started on an Electrician Course 

The Office for National Statistics notes that trades like electrical work deliver some of the UK’s highest craft wages, often funding side-projects that blossom into full-blown careers.【ONS 2018 ASHE Table 14.7】 

10 – Liam Cunningham 

The future “Davos” from Game of Thrones quit school at 15 to become an electrician’s mate, later maintaining safari-park generators in Zimbabwe. That hands-on grounding helps him relate to crew members even on Hollywood sets. 

9 – Stuart Pearce 

“Psycho” balanced Second-Division football with domestic rewires and once advertised his services in a Nottingham Forest match-day programme. He is now an asbestos-safety ambassador after suspecting past exposure on site. 

8 – Rowan Atkinson 

Before Mr Bean was born, Atkinson completed a master’s in electrical engineering at Oxford. The timing skills he learned testing circuits show up in his precision comedy beats. 

7 – Sir David Jason 

Six years of apprenticeship preceded Only Fools and Horses. Jason famously “gave up his current girlfriend” along with his wiring job to chase acting full-time. 

6 – Sir Bobby Charlton 

Charlton’s mum insisted he study electrical engineering —sensible, given 1950s football wages. He still took summer site shifts even after lifting the World Cup. 

5 – George Harrison 

The Beatle admitted he was a “terrible apprentice,” recalling: “I kept blowing things up.” Luckily he swapped cable drums for drum kits. 

4 – Alfred Hitchcock 

Hitchcock’s first post-school role was at Henley’s electrical works, drafting appliance manuals. Colleagues said his meticulous wiring diagrams foreshadowed the storyboards that later defined his films. 

3 – Benjamin Franklin 

Long before he graced the $100 bill, Franklin experimented with lightning rods—the 18th-century equivalent of today’s earth bonding. His kite-and-key test is the most celebrated (and dangerous) DIY ever attempted. 

2 – Albert Einstein 

Family lore says teenage Albert helped wire Oktoberfest’s first electric lights. The job didn’t spark a lifelong trade career, but it did illuminate his path to theoretical physics. 

1 – Elvis Presley 

“The King” trained at Crown Electric Co. and drove a wiring van before recording “That’s All Right.” He later joked: “I must have got wired the wrong way round.”