Cabinetmaker (Furniture Joiner)

Most days run on a single shift, roughly 7am to 4pm Monday to Friday, with the odd Saturday morning when a fit-out deadline is close. You cut, plane and assemble carcasses for kitchens, shop counters and bespoke storage, working from shop drawings and cutting lists. Machine work covers the panel saw, spindle moulder, edgebander and a CNC router for repeat parts, plus the usual hand tools for jointing and fitting. A good share of the work is finishing: sanding, dry-fitting hinges and runners, and prepping surfaces before they go to the spray booth. Some weeks you stay in the workshop, others you head out to a site in or around Nantes to install what you built. You measure twice, mark clearly and own your offcuts.

Read shop drawings and cutting lists without hand-holding

Confident on panel saw, spindle moulder and edgebander

Clean joinery: dominos, dowels, dovetails, biscuits as the job needs

Accurate hinge, runner and hardware fitting

B1 English for drawings, labels and the team

Relocation help and your first weeks of accommodation arranged before you arrive

Transport to the workshop and to install sites covered

Subsidised hot lunch in the canteen

Full French health cover from day one

You start at 1940 net a month. Once you're running jobs end to end and the install quality holds up, pay moves toward 2230 net, usually inside the first year. After that, leading a small bench team or owning the CNC programming opens the next step.

The workshop is a heated, dust-extracted shop with proper machine guarding and ear and eye protection provided. Install days mean some lifting and time on your knees fitting units, but you work in pairs and rarely above ground level. It's a small crew, so the people you cut with are the people you fit with.