Technology Degree Apprentice Review

As a tech degree apprentice I was assigned to a team through an internal cv I created, my own preferences and the available spaces in each department. I was assigned to the cyber security team, which means I performed a similar role to the rest of the technology apprentices, but with a particular focus on cyber. My day-to-day role involves mostly administrative tasks such as creating spreadsheets and reports, however I also did a lot of shadowing work to learn more about the more technical areas of cyber security. Towards the end of my first placement I worked on a large client project where I was put in a much more hands-on position, allowing me to show what I had learned over the earlier stages of the placement.

I have developed my networking and presentational skills as part of the placement, these were set as areas of improvement at the start of the project and as such my managers made this a priority when thinking about which work to assign me. I have also developed my knowledge of cyber security as an industry, which will I'm sure help me on my next placement and beyond that.

I have enjoyed large parts of the programme including having a normal university experience, making friends and then working with those people on my placement. The work I do as part of my placement is often not particularly interesting but this is to be expected at this stage in the programme. The culture in the office definitely makes up for it.

As my year was the first to be offered this tech apprenticeship this is definitely the largest area for improvement. On the whole this year it felt quite unorganised, there were times when people had roles in my programme that they were unaware of. Sometimes key systems were unavailable for sections of the programme, e.g. expenses or timesheets. There was also a general lack of communication between the individual teams, the organisers and the apprentices.

The support network at PwC is flawless, I am yet to find a single colleague that has anything bad to say about the well-being programme or the mentor system. I have had weekly check-ins with a career coach to ensure that the placement is going smoothly and that the work I have is the appropriate amount and level of challenge.

The university has treated us like regular students for the most part, as such all of the facilities available to the other students are available to us to. We have a personal tutor at the university who has weekly meetings with us during term time to monitor how well our studies are going. Overall the support network at the university is there, however it does not feel as personal as the one available at PwC.

There is little to no crossover between my degree programme and the work I have been doing during my placement. This is mostly due to the lack of technical work available in my office, as we mostly deal with advisory and consulting matters. I have made use of some of the skills from my two business modules but the majority of the qualification is irrelevant.

There are many activities like this available, however I would have like to have seen some kind of catalogue of events or teams as for the most part it seems these events are organised by sending out messages or emails, meaning new-starters don't get chance to get involved. Within my team we have been on a few socials after work however due to the short length of the placement the opportunity to do anything further was limited.

Yes

Despite the few problems I've had on my placement, I still feel this is one of the most incredible opportunities I have ever had, it feels slightly surreal sometimes when I realise I am one of very few people who managed to get a place on this course, of the hundreds that applied.

Show enthusiasm and willingness to learn and develop your professional skills. PwC will respect someone who is clearly driven to work hard more than someone with particularly high grades or qualifications. (That said the grades will definitely help) The assessment day tasks are very easy to complete but you will have to work hard to stand out from the rest.