PurPassionCity

Bricklayer / Mason

The pull to bring into existence

Creation · Nothing → Something

The shape of the work

Pace
  • A steady rhythm with room to breathe
  • A hard push you keep up for a long stretch
What your week looks likeMonday-to-Friday, roughly 9-to-5
How much you move around at workOn your feet, using your body most of the day
Whether you can work from anywhereYou need to be there on location
How quickly you receive feedback on your workYou know within hours
What you're actually working withConcepts, theories, designs, stories — things you think up / Materials, organisms, land, equipment — things you can touch

Behaviours this work is made of

Core
  • Constructing from parts into a functional whole. Structural, assembled.
  • Achieving beauty through skill and attention to material.
  • Quantifying what's happening so it can be reasoned about precisely.
Also present
  • The final touches that elevate quality.
  • Creating the framework that holds things together.

In words

A bricklayer builds walls and structures from bricks, concrete blocks and stone, setting each unit in mortar to a plan. Called a bricklayer in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, and a mason or brick mason in the US and Canada, where "mason" can also mean someone who works in stone or concrete.

The pull is Creation. A wall rises from a foundation to something a building stands on, and the work is visible and countable at the end of each day. It also has an Aesthetic side: brick patterns, arches and the finish of the mortar joints are seen by everyone who passes the building for decades.

The craft is accuracy at speed. The bricklayer checks level and line constantly, keeps courses straight over long runs, and works round windows, doors and corners so that the wall is both strong and neat.

There's a guide here if you want one

Kitsune can talk through anything on this page — whether it might suit you, what to do next, questions this page doesn't answer. Everything here is yours to read either way.

Many bricklayers are paid per brick laid, so the pace is fast and the job rewards people who stay accurate while hurrying. It is hard on the back, knees and shoulders, and many experienced bricklayers move into supervising, training, estimating or restoration work as they get older. Restoration work on older buildings, using lime mortar and matching old brick, is slower and often better paid.

Machines that lay bricks exist and are being tested on large sites, but most building still needs people to deal with corners, openings and uneven ground, so demand for skilled bricklayers remains strong in many countries.

The usual route is a paid apprenticeship of about two to four years that combines site work with college study, or work as a labourer on a site while learning the trade and then taking a trade assessment. No formal qualification is needed to start as a trainee or labourer. In many countries a trade qualification or card is needed to work on larger sites, and the form it takes differs by country. From bricklaying people move into foreman and site supervisor roles, into stone and restoration masonry, or into running their own business.

Before you go