Mechanical fitter Review

My role within BAE system is within the operation and maintenance department, I am part of the steam heating team and in my day to day activities we maintain various plant rooms around the site that are the main hubs of providing heating to the buildings, we also have a summer shut down period of the heating and during this period we do a lot of main line work, which involves refitting and replacing the pipework in which the steam runs through.

within my time in BAE I have learnt many new skills which I have found a huge benefit within the work I do such as fabrication and general hand skills, these benefit me greatly as the nature of my work involves me having to adapt to what existing materials I have available, as the system we work on is over 50 years old.

I enjoy the programme massively and have met a lot of helpful and friendly people and mentors along the way, I would recommend the programme to anyone who is interested in getting into the engineering industry as there are many trades and teams that you can become a part of within the company.

At the beginning of the programme it was a bit hit and miss as it were, the skills development centre in which we were to spend our first 2 years had just undergone and huge refurbishment and the staff and other people that worked in there were still adjusting the new way of working. Some of the training assessors had also left the company y which made things a bit difficult in respect that our NVQ paperwork was not being marked and checked when we needed it to.

Now that I am within the maintenance section I receive every single bit of support I could ever need. My managers are absolutely brilliant and will try there very best to resolve any issue I may have as quickly as possible. I feel very privileged to have such caring managers.

When in the training centre we had all of our assessors and mentors to hand so that was really helpful, but now working out in the site we had to make appointments with our mentors and it became a bit of a pain as they were hardly every in, or kept leaving the company due to unknown reasons, this made many apprentices get behind on their NVQ work.

It was a bit difficult for me as I gained a secure placement within the heating section early on in my apprenticeship and all of my NVQ work was based around engine maintenance, although I got all of the work done, it was a bit tricky to learn about two different types of trades in order to complete my work.

In the maintenance section they do a few extra curricular activities such as football that we can get involved in, but as this is mid week and in the middle of they day its not really for me as I would find it hard to get back into the work mentality after having a nice chilled kick about at lunch.

Yes

BAE systems is a very good company to work for and you get so many benefits from being here in many different ways, from what you would anywhere else. Also there are so many different types of work you can get in to so there is room for a lot of growth within the company.

All I would say that if you secured a job or apprenticeship with bae systems is that you must show willing to learn, have a good work ethic and be a friendly and you should get on fine with almost anyone in the company. you cant really go wrong if you are willing to work hard.