Mechanical Maintenance Apprentice Review

I'm a Mechanical maintenance apprentice or better put, a maintenance fitter. I aid in the repairing and maintening of mechanical functions such as pipework (steam, water etc) as well as bearings, pulleys and other such mechanical appliances. My daily experience involves learning how to fix and maintain the equipment across site depending on where I am placed. I learn off of some of the most experience and knowledgable maintenance fitters within the business to gain a vast understanding of my future career.

Of course, throughout my time here at AWE I have gained many new skills such as the use of a lathe, mill, pillar drill and hand tools such as a hacksaw, ball-pin hammer, mallet, steelsons, spanners, screwdrivers and many more. Even with basic knowledge of those tools before coming to the company I have greatly improved with all of these. Furthermore, I have learned how to fault find within a process as well as fit pipework depending on specifications and other such mechanical maintenance skills.

I enjoy my programme very much, it involves roughly 18 months within a skills academy learning the basics of hand tools and machine work then 18 months on site learning more about my prefered trade. I also help out in maintaining equipment on site with aid from an experienced colleague. Because of this it makes the programme enjoyable as you are not in the same place for the entire thing and learning across the business.

My programme is structure into 2, 18 month blocks. The first 18 months are within a skills academy. These are also split up between 2 9 month blocks. The first 9 months I started off learning hand tools such as scrapers, files and hacksaws. Then moved onto machine like lathes and milling. The second 9 months i was learning about my trade and how to take apart and put back together equipment as well as find faults within them. The second 18 months I am currently doing, this involves me being on site learning the trade with experienced maintenance fitters.

A lot, if issues arise you can speak to your line manager or even go above them. If you are ill you can phone in sick (within reason) and simply take the time off you need to recover. Furthermore, leave can easily be taken as long as you leave enough notice unless its an emergency.

We have monthly meetings with our line manager who goes over what we need to do as well as how to do it. This also covers our write-ups for evidence to show to our qualifications provider. Furthermore, a conversation about poor guidance from onsite trainees will lead to you being moved or the issue being resolved.

Well of course i feel it helps me perform better at my role because it gives me a vast amount of knowledge about how the equipment works. This means i understand why we need to keep it maintained and shows me the importance of performing as best as i can in my role.

Yes, we have subscription based activities where we pay a small sum towards doing some activites. We have a gym, a pub, fishing and other activities that we can get together and do outside of work hours. Furthermore, at the beginning of my apprenticeship we went to a green park and performed sporty team building activities with out future colleagues.

Yes

Because its a great place to work, the annual leave is good, the pension is good, the apprentice pay is good (only gets better the longer you stay). Furthermore, its a friendly environment thats easy to get comfortable in, even with all the extra security due to it being a nuclear licensed site.

Be kind and friendly as that is mostly what you will experience even with the few onsite workers (typically office workers) who dislike us and tend to always look at getting us in trouble for something. Furthermore, if you pass your online tests which are relatively easy and straight forward anyway, just require a bit of common sense. During the assessment centre, be yourself but more assertive just try not to come off rude whilst doing so.