Property Management Apprentice Review

All aspects of property management including managing my own portfolio of single- and multi-let properties. This involves debt collection (including detailed analysis of tenant financial accounts); service charge budget setting, implementation and reconciliation; lease reading/extraction; client engagement (including providing advice on aspects of property/asset management); report writing; enforcing legal obligations on tenants; and engaging with solicitors in the drafting of legal documentation (e.g. heads of terms, sale contracts etc.). This is not an exhaustive list but an indication of the range of activities I undertake on a regular basis.

This was a new area of work to me and so I have learnt an entire set of new skills which I had previously not used, such as: professional report writing; tenant liaison; client liaison; and detailed legal analysis. I have also developed existing skills such as analysis of financial accounts; communication skills; excel proficiency; and extensive teamworking.

The work-based aspect of my apprenticeship is absolutely invaluable and I could not promote the apprenticeship scheme more. Being able to learn my job whilst earning money, obtaining my degree (at zero cost to myself) and obtaining my professional qualification is absolutely key. I believe this will stand me in better stead when I graduate than most people who attend university full time as I will have years' of experience by that point.

The programme is quite well structured and has certainly improved since I began. Given the number of apprentices at the company when I started, there wasn't much known about it and it felt that the graduate team and my management team were learning as we went. We now have a dedicated apprenticeship team due to the increased number of apprentices which has greatly improved the structure of the programme. The team are very approachable and knowledgeable about the apprenticeship, the structure and the route, and if they are not sure of the answer they are always very quick to respond.

My employer is absolutely fantastic and the management of my apprenticeship through our HR function and my line manager is very nearly seamless. The longer I'm at the company, the more knowledge we all obtain about the apprenticeship and there are now structures in place within the company which make it significantly easier to complete my apprenticeship without issue.

We are given the weekly content for our course which, being a distance learning course, is almost exclusively reading. There is minimal interaction excluding live online seminars which invariably occur in the middle of the working day, making it easier simply to listen to the recordings. The university appear to have less of an idea about the course and the route than my employer despite the university being the training provider; I believe our apprenticeship team initially received a lot of advice from the university which has since been amended or was plainly incorrect. Communication from the university is poor and in my final year of my course, it is still unclear at which point I will be starting my project work and my APC enrolment.

The course is extremely academic and a lot of the material, particularly in the first year or two, has not benefited me in my role and appears to have minimal/no relevance to surveying. A significant portion of the first two years is related to business management based on the assumption that the students are already managers in a large firm which is inappropriate to a first/second year bachelors student. The knowledge obtained from completing my job is invaluable, however, the knowledge obtained from my course has had very little impact on my ability to complete my job; it seems that the curriculum has been written without any real-world application in mind.

There are many activities to undertake outside of working hours at my job. There is an office softball team, rugby team, football team and golf away days. We have an extensive graduate programme which provides many opportunities for engaging with other apprentices/graduates in the wider market and within the company itself. We run our own networking events but also have invitations through our network of contacts to various client/RICS/competitor's events.

Yes

The graduate and apprenticeship programmes are extremely well structured which provides an excellent training platform and support to progress through to professional qualification. The company is welcoming and wide-ranging; I could comfortably sit in a different office anywhere in the country for a day and feel completely at ease with the people and the set up in that office. There is a positive and encouraging culture within the company, although despite best efforts, this is still rather London-centric (but this has certainly improved significantly even since I began working here).

At apprenticeship level, you are not expected to know anything in any detail, you need to ensure you are personable and confident, whilst being modest and approachable. Property is a people-based sector and within that, Savills is a particularly people-focused company. The most important thing is to ensure you are an interested and engaging person; the training aspect of the job is so well-structured that you will certainly know all you need to know by the end of the apprenticeship even if you start with no prior knowledge.