Technical Apprenticeship Review

Technical Apprentice with Rolls Royce Motor Cars, working for the test and finish department. Involving wheel and light alignment, rolling road tests, under-body checks, high-pressure water tests, road and shake tests. At college we learn about engines, maths, manufacturing and fabricating products, and working with electrical systems to help us with the learning and at work.

I’ve learnt how to maintain engines and equipment, how to fabricate simple components, soldering electrical equipment and diagnostics, and how to make and understand technical drawings. And also at college learnt how to make sure that documentation is up to date and has the correct standards on to make it legal. I have also learnt how to do wheel alignments, and various ways of testing cars.

I find it really interesting and a good change from regular college work. It is good to be in a work environment with lots of other like-minded people. There have been lots of experiences since joining, such as going to Skern Lodge as a group for team building, and getting to work in a large production plant.

I feel that the company has a significant interest in my career with them and care about making it work for me. They have a system of tracking work that I do using the IDs and the tracking sheets for the car, seeing that I am able to work on the cars.

Most of it is really organised. Some of the information is a bit last minute, but not so bad that I am panicking to get ready. Coming into work some people dont know that were coming, but most do and have ideas of work that we can do or people to shadow.

At college we always have the lecturers around, even on the days we are not being taught by them we can find them in breaks or lunch to get help. We are also able to email them for help outside of college or with concerns. In lessons most of them are very useful, and they know a lot about the subject that they are teaching.

We have good contact with our managers at the plant, as they are normally in their offices or about the place. If not they are good at replying to emails when we need help from them. When we need help from them they normally know what the answer is or what we should do, if they don’t they know who we should contact next in order to get the help we need.

The salary is enough to pay for travel costs, with some left to spend on myself and general living costs. The main cost for me is car insurance, so the car scheme has helped to be able to get a car and insurance covered by the scheme. I feel that money can be a bit tight after the cost of the car has been deducted, some months finding that my bank balance is lower than previous months.

There are not many opportunities that I know of as I am mostly at college, however there was a christmas event for employees.

Yes

It is a big company with seemingly lots of opportunities to move about the company, opportunities of developing your skills within the company. There are lots of places in the company to work, with a , large range of different diferent skills such as woodshop, leather shop, paint shop and also working with Mini or BMW rather than Rolls Royce.

Make sure that you are ready to do the online test in a comfortable environment and dont rush them. And choose a course that you would enjoy.