Apprentice Data Analyst Review

Usually my day involves creating and maintaining various data solutions that support business operations, these include creating scripts to create reports, creating business intelligence dashboards and web portals for entering and editing data. The functions I support include but are not limited to customer portfolio management and the management/tracking of performance.

I have gained a wide variety of new skills, I am now fairly competent in a few programming languages and understand how to structure and present data. I feel my communication skills have also improved significantly as I must analyse what different stakeholders want from a solution. I also have a more hollistic view of how IT fits within an organisation.

Overall I really enjoy the work side of the programme as I feel I am making a tangible difference to the organisation and can easily reflect on how much | have grown professionally but also as a person. The education aspect of my education (HNC in Computing systems and architecture) is really informative but the competency aspect (NVQ) is rather tedious.

I believe that the overall experience is quite well organised as it has been clear what the long term progress through the apprenticeship would look like and any deviations from this have been communicated clearly. All education aspects were organised quickly to ensure I would be gaining an education as I work.

The amount of support I get from my Employer really is one of the most significant successes of this apprenticeship. I have had tremendous support to learn new skills and progress my career not only from my colleagues but also senior management. Everyone has shown patience and understanding of any challenges I have faced and celebrated my successes I really could never thank them enough.

The training provider GK have been very supportive with aiding the completion of my NVQ clearly offering advice and guidance on how I can meet a piece of criteria. My secondary training provider Nottingham College have given an outstanding level of support for balancing my work and study and helped me strive towards top grades.

My NVQ doesn't really help me perform better as it just documents what I have done at work and all the theory element has been mainly covered by the HNC in greater detail. The HNC on the other hand has given me a fantastic foundation understanding of IT and hope it should be used within an organisation.

There are a few clubs to join (most only short term). Last year there was a couch to 5K club, during the world cup there were various tournaments (tale tennis, wii sports etc). One long term group however is where all members get paired with a random individual in the organisation one month just to get to know them for ten minutes.

Yes

I would recommend Siemens to a friend because it is an incredibly supportive company who see value of growing new talent and allow individuals to perform as effectively as they can in the workplace. There is also a wide range of roles and progression routes through Siemens so it is likely an individual will find a good fir for them.

My advice for an individual applying to Siemens would be to be ambitious and show it. Show how passionate you are about given roles and topics and don't be afraid to share longer term goals. I would also advise to be honest about what you would like to get from the role and your long term intentions.