Technology Analyst Review

As a Technology Analyst in the bank's Digital and Engineering Services department I can get involved in a wide range of IT, Systems, Big Data and AI projects. When I started I helped build a site to help many team members share information and collaborate on their work while I got up to speed on a Cloud Data Warehouse project that I work on now. I need to understand governance processes and the regulatory environment we work in to do my day to day work.

Governance and management skills are huge areas of development for me. Working in such a large organisation means you have a steep learning curve for communications, team working, diary management, administrative and review responsibilities, governance, new technologies or technologies that only exist within the bank, and there are hundreds of internal training courses available to everyone in the organisation should there be a specific area you want to develop yourself in.

The job and work itself is brilliant -my team, department and managers all create a productive, collaborative and inclusive work environment that I'm sure will help me grow as a professional. However I give a low score because the side that RBS cannot control -the actual Apprenticeship learning and modules with BPP -are terribly managed which makes my job more difficult than it needs to be.

BPP are extremely badly organised. During our first days in the induction we were introduced to timelines and deadlines that were never met so we began our modules months after we were supposed to and no communications were sent to the apprentices or our line managers. Each time we have a meeting with our contacts in BPP we are told materials will be emailed to us after -this never happens. The most recent example of this would be that two months ago we were all told that our training days for the rest of the year were about to have the dates confirmed imminently -yet last week we were given 'unconfirmed' dates for these. Meetings are cancelled at the last minute or moved around several times before they occur and submitted work takes months to be marked. We've been told that delays have been caused by staff holidays, absence or by the older apprentices submitting work at the same time -but it feels like the company is just badly disorganised, especially when different staff members give us completely different pieces of information on how to submit work or upcoming review dates. RBS again, is very good and our managers are as supportive as they can be with our changing timetables!

Quite a lot! There is a dedicated Early Careers team in RBS that we can always contact for help or information. They also support our department and line managers. My immediate team are supportive of the work I need to complete for BPP and give me choices on which work to help out on so I can have a say and some flexibility in my role and career development.

There is support towards earning our qualifications however BPP is slow to respond and poor at communicating information. I think if everything was running as it should we would feel better supported and much more informed but this is not the case! The general attitude from our assessor in supporting us is that we're a bit of a burden as they're very busy which is a shame.

The modules so far haven't been applicable to my role but have been to other apprentices and ones that will be relevant to my job are coming up in the future. We had a choice for one of our upcoming modules where my line manager had to pressure our assessor to let myself and another apprentice choose a more relevant topic because they wanted all the apprentices to complete the same module (which was completely irrelevant) to make things easier for BPP.

Yes there are multiple Employee-Led Networks in RBS such as the RBS Women Network which I've joined. There are many sports and interests groups across the bank and quite a few in our department. I volunteer at Code Club each week where primary school children come into a work-space and use company computers to complete challenges and create games all designed to help them learn to use coding languages such as Python or Scratch for free.

Yes

The company is an industry leader in Banking, IT and Technology Solutions and is a great place to begin and develop your career. There are flexible working hours, multiple support networks, excellent teams and brilliant people to work with. It's fantastic to be a part of a global business that has such a focus on its customers.

If applying through the apprenticeship -expect a poor service from BPP who manage the apprenticeship work but not the applied banking or technology work! If applying to another RBS role -it's important to be brilliant, collaborative and customer focused to be a successful applicant so think about which past experiences in your education, work, volunteering or recreational roles best demonstrate this!