If I were you, I would ask him to study up and then give him parts of my projects(you said you're a contractor) and we can see if it works out or not. If it does in a couple of years or four he can be a contractor himself under your mentorship.
I would try to identify an ecosystem where he could start building on his own: Custom Shopify functionality, Wordpress plugins etc. he can try to find small customers with simple needs and scale up as he learns. The ecosystem will provide him some guardrails and shrink the surface area to something manageable. You could coach him as he goes if you have time.
Maybe thats what he's asking anyway ;)