It's taken me threee years to find enough work but I really am not good at selling myself. so if you can sell yourself then you'll find the work. This year has been good though as people are coming back to me and I've only been run off 1 job.
When I had a proper job I had about 2.9 k dropping in my bank account every month after tax. I doubt if I'll see that kind of stability from coxing or training.
Statring rates for Civils work is around 110 a day going up to 160 or 180. The work is out there if your lucky enough to get it
The quals have been covered in one of the similar posts on this forum in the last few days.