Pipefitter Review

My role in BAE Systems is a pipefitter apprentice. My day-to-day activities involve learning new skills, then combining these new skills to make pieces of work that must meet certain criteria such as tolerances. My future day-to-day role will involve fitting and maintain pipes on naval ships that are stationed at the dockyard.

For the first part of my apprenticeship the focus has been on improving hand tool use and learning some basic machinery such as pillar drills. Some of the hand tools I've used are hammers, files and saws. I have also used hand held drills and a jigsaw. I will start learning new skills very shortly such as welding.

I enjoy my programme a lot, I don't mind waking up in the morning and coming to work. I have made a lot of new good friends whilst working here as well. Overall it has been my favourite job that I have held. I think my enjoyment will only increase as I learn more skills.

The programme is very well structured, we have been told how our course will play out and when we will do what. For example, the first year we focus on developing skills and then go out and do real jobs in our second year. The organisation is overall pretty good, however we did have some issues at the start that were out of the company's hands but could of been dealt with better.

I receive a lot of support from my employer, whether this is work related or not is irrelevant the company offers support. Also if you have something like a doctors appointment they will allow you to leave with plenty of time to get there stress free. Overall I am happy with the support I receive.

There is lots of support when working towards the qualifications. We practice mock exams and have lots of time to revise. If we feel like we need extra revision then we are usually allowed this time, also our teacher is more than happy to give one on one time when we need it.

I feel the qualification will be very useful in my role. The qualification involves lots of background knowledge that will be common knowledge out in our role. An example of this is properties of materials which will be useful to know when on a job, another example is learning about the effects heat has on different materials.

Yes, there are many extra-curricular activities that we can get involved with. When we started we did an outward bound experience that was great for team building and getting out. We have also recently done a royal navy engineering challenge that involved us splitting into groups and crafting our own boats from scratch.

Yes

I have already recommended this apprenticeship to many of my friends. This is because the pay is very good for an apprentice, their is plenty of opportunity to progress throughout the company, and I also think this is a great opportunity for young people to kick start their career whilst earning money.

Make sure it is what you want to do. Also be prepared to put in the hard work as it is a necessity at this job, you can't laze around and get away with it. However, if you do put the hard work in and have a good attitude you are treated very well.