Financial Planning Apprentice Review

Role- Financial Planning I sit in a finance cost centre providing support for a team of accountants whilst I study to be one myself, I have picked up a variety of pieces of work from different stakeholders within my team collating a portfolio of tasks creating myself an influential and important role in my business area. The activities that I frequently have to complete are: • Investment benefits report • Regulatory and Legacy projects recharge summaries • Regulatory and Legacy projects headcount summary • Collated business vacancy reports • Month end actuals vs forecast commentary • DST invoices • Mumbai to UK headcount summary • Headcount locations for Reading, Stirling and London report, data and PowerPoint • IFDS/PGDS monthly review and feedback • Supporting Quarterly forecasting for Regulatory and Legacy Projects • Reed & Mackay travel expenses report and analysis PowerPoint

I am currently studying to qualify myself as an accounting technician. I have improved my communication skills as well as team working combined, massively improved my computer skills and my business and economic knowledge has drastically improved working within a business

I really enjoy coming to work I enjoy what I do and the challenges it throws at me whilst working within an amazing team and am really enjoying the work/business culture and it has exceeded expectations.

Within my team I feel very valued due to feedback from my manager and stakeholders surrounding me that I help out and feel like I am very helpful up in finance due to the multiple tasks I have taken on from multiple people up in my area but seeing as I am not fully qualified yet in accountancy I still have a lot to learn and add in the future which I don't have the knowledge to add now so I cannot always help out

The programme is very organised ever since I first arrived the induction and training set a very good platform for us to move up into the office and everyone provided a lot of support including my line manager and apprenticeship manager

I have has some problems with my training provider as I found their teaching methods didn't benefit my learning due to the classes being online based and just found it difficult to learn that way and it didn't feel personal as you were in an online class of 30, since this I swapped to classroom based lessons and the teaching has been very good and the support the same

My line manager is really supportive we have weekly meetings to discuss how I can improve and if I need any help as well as monthly meetings with my apprenticeship manager but all the colleagues and the HR team when I've need to speak to them all have my best interests and really want me to do well and support me

Meets them quite well but for me personally I have a lot of travel costs as well as living costs as have to pay for everything myself so I find it hard to save but it gets me by month to month by if I didn't play rugby semi-professionally I would really struggle saving any money and comparing my pay compared to friends of mine at other apprenticeships they do earn more

There are lots of opportunities at prudential to get involved in social activities with colleagues whether it is at the office or outside and due to the location of the office we are surrounded by opportunities to get involved with things such as gyms, classes, bars, restaurants, sports clubs etc

Yes

They are an amazing company to work for with tons of opportunities and a great place to start a successful career

Be confident, sociable and always take notes to help improve your knowledge