Rolls Royce Higher Apprentice Review

I was placed into a manufacturing role within the Turbines business, with a wide range of placements that covered interfacing with the supply chain, managing substantial projects and purchasing manufacturing machinery.

With the higher apprenticeship, you have the opportunity to gain experience in both the business environment whilst completing a number of qualifications.

The higher apprenticeship overall is very good, however, the disorganisation of a number of aspects of my apprenticeship that I witnessed meant that mine, along with a few others within Turbines, did not reach the standard of others placed within different business areas of Rolls-Royce. I do believe that the mistakes that were made have been learnt from, so it should not happen again to any others.

Within the business I was given tasks of considerable importance to do, which meant that I gained the maximum knowledge from my time in the business; however, when it came to placing me into a permanent role, there was a lack of clarity as to where this would be and no real haste was made to speed up this process, until at a later stage.

The training that I have received I cannot fault, however, the overall structure is very poor. There was no consultation or planning as to which business areas each apprentice would go into based upon their strengths, which has meant that I have been placed into an area in which my strengths are not completely utilised. I have had issues whereby I have had no idea what permanent role I would be going in to, and there was a lack of communication as to how this would affect us.

From my NVQ assessor, placement line managers and Apprentice Development Leader, I received all of the help that they were able to give me, meaning I cannot pick any faults with them.

The support received from the personnel in charge of organising my first permanent role was simply not good enough, which was mainly down to how poorly organised the Turbines business was at planning for its apprentices.

The salary is very good, especially when coupled with the cost savings as a pose to going to University. The salary rises are based upon how quickly you pick up the experience and show that you are ready for a rise in pay.

I have received a large amount of communication emails from various groups involved with the company, which means that everyone is up to date with what is going on and can choose to get involved if they wish.

Yes

Very good basis for an apprenticeship, with good experience gained, good support for qualifications and also gets you into a multi-national company.

As said before, I believe the mistakes that were made that I suffered from will have been rectified by now, so there should not be any issues.