IT Apprentice Review

We do rotations around the company, so it depends on the rotation. In a business analyst role, it's your job to elicit, understand and facillitate the gathering of requirements. Speaking to people elsewhere in the business e.g. in labs, and learning what their issues are and documenting them to drive improvements through an IT solution.

I have developed my communication ability, as it is essential when speaking to people who don't work in IT as they may not know how IT operates, but also speaking to people e.g. developers who don't work elsewhere in the business and so may not have an understanding of what work happens there.

A lot because it gives me good opportunities within different teams, where I am seen as another team member and not as 'just an apprentice'. People are sometimes surprised when you say you're an apprentice as they thought you were a full time employee based on how you work.

The program is fairly structured, and was when we started, with different rotations around the company lasting around 6-9 months. The rotations are really good when you're in them, but there's not much support to find new rotations besides relying on your mentor, who often may not have worked with apprentices before. The program is 4 years long and you're expected to take a permanent position after around 2 years but everyone has been told different things about this and there isn't much support to negotiate a permanent position

There's little organisation or structure around the apprenticeship. Support has become less and less over time, where supporting roles have been dissolved or merged with other roles. It feels like early talent isn't really being thought about. It seems to be getting better over time, but formal and sustainable support structures don't seem to have been put in for the long-term e.g. actual headcount to support us.

Support from MMU is good. There is someone from uni who comes in every few months to check students are okay but it sometimes seems a bit pointless for the student as you end up repeating a lot of stuff. Lecturers are mostly good, with some good and some bad depending on who you get. Student reps are available for issues too.

Dependent on the role / which pathway you chose but it is really useful, if not directly. E.g. learning how to code - you may not use it day-to-day, but it's useful to do and understand so when you speak to programmers who do that all day, you can understand them better.

There are a few but often just within teams/departments. It would be nice to have more social things for apprentices or younger people in general though, as there's a lot of apprentices or grads and not much between us unless you organise it yourself. There's lots of in-work professional events for networking though.

Yes

It is an amazing company to work for who will develop you in a variety of ways. Although support is pretty low, it seems to be slightly improving and you can still do amazing work without program support if you are proactive and engaged. The people here are really great though, supportive, don't make you work to hard but push you enough and generally appreciate when you need to focus on uni work.

I would recommend it. It was a fairly relaxed interview day compared to other places, as the culture is not incredibly formal, but you have to prepare well for it to succeed. Take time to understand the company as it is very complicated. Do proactive things in school like sports teams, instruments, take part in events etc.