Finance Apprentice Review

Currently I work in BI Transfer pricing within Treasury. Transfer pricing is when we work out the rate to charge businesses within the bank for borrowing money from Treasury. I work for BI which means we deal with the international businesses/ large UK businesses. On a day to day basis, the majority of my work is answering questions from the businesses and helping them to understand the charges.

I think throughout this rotation I have learnt a lot of new skills and my confidence has massively increased. I have learnt many skills on excel and other applications, but my confidence has really blossomed due to having the chance to talk to people of all different levels within treasury.

I really enjoy the program, sometimes it can be quite difficult as it can be very long hours as it is so busy; however I really enjoy the work I do and I am always learning new stuff - something I really enjoy. I also have a really supportive and helpful manager which makes it even better.

I do feel quite valued by Barclays, sometimes I do pieces of work which go to really senior stakeholders and it fills me with pride that I had some input on it. I always feel like the pieces of work I do are worthwhile so it makes me feel very valued and happy.

I think it is very well organized. I think there is always room for improvement but that is the same with everything. We have weekly sessions to focus on our leadership and development and we do skills on presenting etc. which is very helpful. We also have monthly meetings with the head of the finance apprenticeship so we can raise any issues and we have an allotted buddy who we can talk to if we have any issues.

Apart from going to the lessons, there isn't much in the way of teaching help - they give their emails so we can email them if we have any issues but I personally don't do that. They have lots of resources online such as online lectures which means if we missed something we can watch that - I think that is the most helpful thing. They also provide lots of mini assessments which help you show what you're doing well and what you need to improve.

I receive a lot of support from my employer, if there is anything I ever want to know/ need help with, there is always someone willing to help. They offer lots of training courses If you want to improve skills and they are always promoting learning.

My salary is very good, especially for an apprentice! It allows me to have sufficient money for my travel, my car, spending money and ability to save quite a lot a month too. They are very generous!

There are quite a few opportunities to meet people out of work, they offer lots of social and sport clubs, however I don't go to any. There are also always lots of social events going on that basically anyone can go to and there are always chances for networking.

Yes

I think Barclays is a really good company to work for - they really care about you as a person and really push you to express and embrace who you are. Barclays is a great company to work for due to the diversity and the flexibility with roles within the company. I think its an amazing starting place to work and a great general place. I feel very lucky that I joined the world of work here.

My tips would be to really embrace yourself for who you are, strengths and skills and to show lots of confidence. They are looking for people with ambition and interest in making the company even better than it is. It sounds very cliché, put be yourself and be the best version of yourself!