Technical Apprentice Review

My job is a Technical Apprentice, we are on a rotation plan which involves placements in different sections around the business. They are 4 month placements and varied in content. A general role in each department is to learn what the department does, to be involved with work which is live and ongoing and fit in with the team to gain experience of what it is like to be part of that engineering department. On top of the day to day jobs we have in departments there is university work and NVQ evidence which needs to be completed constantly.

In the departments i feel my skills have been very low end ones, the work in general is administrative work or monitoring work which isn't my ideal picture of engineering. There are some limited opportunities to get your hands on aircraft or products and test them but that is very dependant on the training rotation plan you fall on. The internal training courses are few and far between but we do attend an external college/university to study each week.

I don't enjoy the work i do the majority of the time. it can be very slow paced and repetitive which is not what i want to come to work for. But again it does depend on the department you are in, if the team in there is good and proactive in there work it reflects well on myself as my attitude is reflective but a lazy team with little work and no urgency is very much not how i see a company culture been and it is well under the expectations i expected. I do not enjoy the work in those situations but the idea of only been in a department 4 months is a good one as it gives you an experience to which placements you may enjoy or not.

BAE Systems look after the apprentices well, the training team is on hand to offer support when required and try to help out with things, but this does not always come to light as some things we require the company do not seem willing to offer support any further. The company as a whole seem somewhat disinterested in apprentices and I find myself thinking i am a very small fish in a very big pond when i am given no active work to be completing and am not involved with a department.

The induction process was regulated and structured but was how i would describe my apprenticeship in general; slow. The training team at Brough is a good one although it is small and could do with some more support itself. I get time to study if required and am supported in this by my training team. The rotation plan isnt great, there is a force of people into a department where it would be more ideal if apprentices chose departments based on how they see themselves excelling or enjoying there work, coming to work would be much easier if i knew i could turn up every day and have some good tasks, something interesting to be carrying on with or enjoying my job.

The training provider provides more than adequate support considering the number of people which are employed as training staff on the Brough site.

Departmental support is variable, some departments use you well to complete jobs which are beneficial to your learning, some use you as free labour to complete stuff which is painful and awkward for them to do. It is difficult to put comments down like this due to the structure of our apprenticeship.

The salary is competitive and fair, apprentices are not able to have overtime which would be a nice added luxary but the location of the site is easy to get to.

There are minimum skills which are transferable from BAE to the outside world, unless you were just doing general administration work. There is sometimes half hearted emails going around about voluntary ideas and sports clubs but nothing really seems to be followed through. I took it upon myself to do work outside of BAE to gain more skills and life experience and the positive i can take from work is the working hours help and enable me to do this.

No

The work is very steady and not something i brag to my friends about doing. I think it might look a good job from the outside world but reality is sometimes very different and the days drag by at a slow pace when you are spending hours upon hours entering data into a spreadsheet over and over again.

The application process is no different to anywhere else, it seems to go in your favour if you know someone who works for BAE Systems but this was an unknown until after i was employed. The assessments were quite easy and the pass marks required was very low considering this should be a high end company with high end apprenticeships. There was no assessment on leadership skills which i see a neccessity for been confident and positive thinking.