Quantity Surveyor Apprentice Review

At the moment, I am currently working on the Leeds Public Transport Investment Programme in Leeds. I started off with a 13 week block at college which ended before Christmas. I am now shadowing a senior Quantity Surveyor, learning the fundamental skill sets of the role. I will be out on site for 8/9 months before returning back for another college block.

I am currently shadowing a senior QS out on site which is helping me learn the fundamental skills required for the role, along with developing my existing skillset. Although the educational aspect is taught at college, you come to realise that from a practical aspect, it isn't quite the same. This is why hands-on learning on site is vital.

The apprenticeship programme I am currently on is very enjoyable. I appreciate the way the programme began with a college block, allowing you to meet everybody else on your course, giving you the time to get to know everybody and learn about each other. I believe I enjoyed the start more than others as I was living at home (as I am from Leeds and the college is also in Leeds), whilst everybody else had to move away from home.

I believe the structure of the programme is a lot better than other programmes I have come across in the past. In my opinion, the block release for college/site is a lot better than college day release as it allows you to purely focus on college work, rather than feeling overwhelmed with the pressure of work and studying at the same time. Although, with saying this, it is said that during the college block, the level and intensity of learning is very high.

To say the employer has hundreds of apprentices to deal with, they are very supportive of us. They believe that we are the future of the business therefore will provide us with as much support as possible. They are very fast to respond and deal with queries or any issues.

The support received from our training provider varies quite a lot, dependant on the tutor. As mentioned previously, during the college blocks the level and intensity of learning and studying is very high so a lot of hard work is required from the apprentice themselves. The level of support from the college varies as some tutors are a lot more helpful and devote more time towards their students than others.

To be quite honest, I cannot answer this question to its full potential compared to other more experienced apprentices as I am only in my first year, having only started in Oct 2019. From my personal experience, I can say that both what you learn at college and what you learn from your practical role are both very important, but both also very different in their own way.

When out on site, each project has their own team with their own extra-curricular activities going on (some more than others). When at college, there were some activities to get involved with, especially when it was approaching the end of the block or nearer to Christmas time however, I believe there could be more to get involved with, depending on people's demands.

Yes

I would definitely recommend BAM Nuttall to a friend if this was 100% the industry they were looking to enter as a career. They have hundreds of different projects going on all around the world, with many different sister companies to work alongside and lots of knowledge/experience to gain.

The main tip I would advise to other people applying to BAM Nuttall is first of all, make sure that this is definitely the industry you would like to enter as it is very different to other industries, and second of all just be yourself. BAM are very much person people and if they like you for who you are, if you are passionate about what you want to do, then they will employ you as at the end of the day, we are the future of the business, therefore they are willing to invest in you a lot.