Engineering Apprentice Review

My role at the airport is a mecahtronics maintenance technician which involves looking after the assets of the company which include airfield lighting, airbridges, assets in the terminals and the baggage systems. Maintenance on these assets are reactive (fixing something if it has faulted) and routine/planned maintenance (giving an asset a yearly/monthly inspection).

In my currently short time on the apprenticeship I have developed a lot of hands on practical skills such as learning how to wire up and maintain electrical components, installing and maintaining of mechanical setups like driveshafts and how to set up and maintain programmable logic controllers. I have also developed a lot of social skills required when working in a professional environment.

I enjoy the programme as we are currently getting paid to primarily attend college and complete a course in engineering, something which students may not currently be doing if they are at college as a student or perhaps at university. I also enjoy the time we spend on site getting some practical experience in the area that we will be working in later on.

The programme is very well structured, the course we are completing in our first year is very straightforward to understand and I know where I am and have been throughout the course and know what is left to be completed in order to successfully pass the course. I am also aware of what courses we will be doing in the later years of the programme and what they entail.

I receive a lot of professional support from the employer who have assisted us in obtaining some company information necessary for completing our course in the first year. They have also assisted us in allowing us to get the experience we need in the airport ares for when we finish our programme.

The staff at the college have provided us with a lot of support in helping us understand the knowledge that we need when it comes to us completing the assessed tasks in the qualification. They give us a lot of verbal feedback and written feedback when it is required of them.

The qualification we are undertaking at the college is tailored to the roles on engineering and teaches us a lot about maintenance of electrical and mechanical systems. This allows me to perform better in my role at the airport as it gives me a better and clearer understanding of techniques and procedures in this field.

There are some social activities that are exclusive to the engineering department and some activities available to any airport employee. We were made aware of these activities when we first joined the company and we were given the opportunity to sign up to the events and activities at the time and still hold the opportunity to join now.

Yes

There are a wide range of apprenticeship courses available at the airport including asset maintenance all the way to procurement courses. The Airport is a very diverse place to work and covers very large aspects of some sectors, due to the size and nature of the airport. MAG Airport also treats employees very well.

It is important to show an interest into the area that you would be applying for as the application process and interview stages are tailored to the area of the airport that you would be going to work into. I would also advise anyone applying to ensure that they have up to date documentation as there is a security aspect to the onboarding process.