Early Careers Apprentice - Location Operations Engineer Review

I work as an engineer, mostly in outside broadcasts, providing radio and TV coverage for events and news. Day to day work can vary massively and involve anything from designing/building a bay of equipment back at base, to rigging/operating a broadcast elsewhere in the country.

Having graduated from an audio engineering degree, I've learnt lots of new skills that I didn't expect to need to know beforehand. Some new skills include camera rigging and operation, as well as learning how to build, configure and troubleshoot AV networks (mostly based on general enterprise hardware).

I love the range of work experience I am able to get involved in, which includes all sorts of work from radio to tv, planning & designing, or installing & operating equipment. It is also extremely unpredictable and unstructured (especially when reacting to breaking news for example), which makes each day different and exciting.

The apprenticeship does lack in some areas such as the external provider of the scheme. Taught modules and a couple of projects are required throughout the programme and delivered by the external company, albeit not in the most organised of manors. Although the content is mostly relevant, there is a lot of overlap between internal and external training.

Support has always been available from my employer. There are two points of contact for me: my line manager (based with me in London), as well as a scheme specialist who looks several groups of apprentices.

Support from the external provider fluctuates massively and is not very consistent. It often comes down to who is lecturing for a certain module, and has varied from being very supportive on the academic side, to unfortunately not showing much interest at all in other modules.

Like with the support from the training provider, lectures and course content varies massively. Some material and tasks set are extremely relevant where I found myself relying on that knowledge in the workplace very quickly, whereas it seems like other modules have been added in to tick boxes. Although, the cohort of apprentices I am with are all based in a wide range of roles, requiring different skills and therefore makes it difficult to develop a course that will be relevant to all.

I am based in West London and there are unfortunately not many opportunities for extra-curricular activities here, as it is a bit far from the larger site in central London. Although, I know there are socials arranged for apprentices regularly at Broadcasting House in London.

Yes

The BBC produces a huge range of content and positions. Working for such a large company offers lots of opportunities to explore different career avenues as an apprentice and gives you the chance to get involved in variety of different programs and events.

Make sure you have experience and examples of work outside of an academic environment. It doesn't need to be 100% relevant to the position you are applying for, but as long as you can demonstrate that you are passionate about what you do, that should help a lot!