Enterprise Management Analyst Review

My role in the Systems and Service management business area involves involves collaborating with teams across the globe to deliver industry leading applications and services. My day-to-day is largely based around incident and change management. I work on both windows and unix operating systems on a daily basis and spend a lot of time responding to user queries and fixing issues.

Before starting this apprenticeship i had very little IT experience, but thanks to extensive training from colleagues and through online training courses i now have extensive IT skills. I've developed coding skills in Java, Javascript, Perl, Python, CSS and HTML. I'm also developing my knowledge on ITIL, AWS and Chef.

I generally enjoy the work i do for my team far more than the work i do at university and for the apprenticeship team. The University program is generally worthwhile and i have enjoyed some of the subjects taught there, but the apprenticeship program can be frustrating due to the requirement to complete apprentice objectives which are unnecessary and, in my opinion a waste of time.

The university programme is well organised and structured. Each student is linked with an ELT who guides them through the course and can help with problems at uni and work. The apprentice program is similar in the way each apprentice has a careers coach, work also provide an 'apprentice buddy' that helps you settle in when you first join and your team provide you with a 'tech buddy' to help you get started with actual work.

My employer, specifically my line manager provides a huge amount of support for receiving additional training. They encourage me to take as many online courses as possible and have arranged for my business area to pay for official IT qualification exams. The apprentice team are also supportive and provide good guidance.

MMU provide an ELT who has checks in every few months to ensure that i'm on track to achieve my targeted grades and to make sure everything is generally going well at uni and at work. Some lecturers provide excellent support for their subjects whereas others don't. It's a mixed bag.

My learning at university has barely affected my performance at work. My subjects and qualification don't really match what i do at work, so its difficult to take what i learn at uni into work. I would say however, learning how to program with Java while at uni did help me adapt to learning how to code with other languages while at work.

Yes, Barclays provide lots of opportunity for taking part in extra-curricular activities. There are plenty of clubs and networking events to get involved in, but i can't really comment as i rarely participate in such events. Barclays also match donations raised for charities and help colleagues promote their charitable organisations through official company communications.

Yes

Its a good company to work for and they provide plenty of opportunity for growth and promotion at the lower levels (apprentice level).

Good luck and be honest.