Operations IT Business Analyst Review

My role is to support the scientists from the IT point of view, a scientist will come to me with an IT problem and I will need to find a working solution and implement that, it requires communicating with several different stakeholders and managing the project end to end. This a great role for understanding more about what AstraZeneca do as a main business.

Communication, through-out my experience I have developed the way I communicate with others and also how to manage resources, this will be useful for any job in the future. Due to the amount of presentations I have hosted I am now more confident and I could (and already have done) conduct a presentation to 300+ people.

I enjoy the flexibility it gives me, in AstraZeneca we can choose which roles we would like some experience in and everybody will try to accommodate the to make sure we get the most out of the experience. I also enjoy how we are treated like any other employee and not as a "lesser" employee which I think aids our growth as an apprentice.

I think that in general the scheme is well structured and there is plenty of structure around us both for work and university, however I still think that there needs to be more visible communication between the workplace and University as currently the only communication between University and my manager is a once a quarter Catch-up, I think the manager would benefit if they had more vision on what we were taking on at university.

My employer has helped me lots with during my 2 years so far, they understand that there is a lot of work that goes into an apprenticeship and everybody is willing to help, whether that is proof reading an assignment, or moving deadlines depending on university work. I feel like there is not much more that can be done from a employers point of view.

I think there is more distance between myself and the University, however most of the time I have emailed them with questions or concerns they have been quick and efficient in there replies, I think they do need to become more proactive with there help though and run more virtual workshops as we cant be expected to leave work just to attend a 30 mins workshop.

There are several skills that I have taken from University and applied to my role in work, for example understanding Java script and basic code has enabled me to create a large data dashboard, I used python to "clean the data" which I could then host on my own website in the intranet which I built using HTML and CSS, both of which I learned during my course.

AstraZeneca prides its self as a "Great Place to Work" and so they have there own gym on site and football pitch, which I play a 5 a-side game every Monday, we also do lots of charity work in teams which is not only a fun activity but team building and exercise.

Yes

AstraZeneca has a great atmosphere and everybody is so friendly to work with, not only that but the state of the art offices are a brilliant environment to work in. Another great incentive are the bonus's that Astrazeneca provide, things like saving shares, private health care, and biking schemes are all great incentives on top of the very good pay.

THe one thing that I was told when I first started AstraZeneca was be yourself. Astrazeneca want a good foundation to teach and build with, that means being friendly and approachable and having the enthusiasms to learn and push yourself to do the best. at the end of the day AstraZeneca can teach you the hard skills, they just need a good set of soft skills to build on.