IT Apprentice Review

I work within the Business Intelligence Team (BI), currently working as a database administrator. Generally my day includes the monitoring and maintenance of our database servers and confirming that they are reliable and secure. Outside of this I work on multiple projects within my team where we are always looking to implement new features or improve existing ones.

Every week I feel like I learn something new within work. The job itself is very complex and a high attention to detail is required. Their is always something new to learn.

The job and the workplace I would highly rate, however the degree through the actual university has its challenges.

Their is no real structure as to how the apprenticeship is structured or laid out. It's not to say that's a bad thing as it gives me more freedom to explore areas that I am interested in, however for the future I think a clear roadmap for new starters would be beneficial.

I feel that my employer does the best that they can for me and enables me to learn as much as I can. My line manager is extremely helpful and is a very good role model.

The support received from the university is poor. We are supposed to have regular meetings to see how we are getting on, but this is done as a tick box exercise for their admin and nothing else, the last call I had the apprentice administrator talked about how its important we keep the portfolio up to date so they can pass their audit rather than talk about how it could help me learn and progress.

Some areas of the degree content are relevant and extremely useful however some parts feel like they are repeated or thrown together last minute. The IT Degree apprenticeship splits into different categories, the pathway I am on is data analytics, however it does feel that 90% of the course is focused on software development.

The team and workplace has still remained social and inviting even in lockdown, which is a real testament to the culture at First Response. We have regular meetings and do our best to keep ourselves engaged with others even when working from home in isolation.

Yes

First Response is an excellent company to work for, the business follows extremely positive and strong set of values. The staff and management are all here to see the company succeed and we generally all work well as a team. The company will offer opportunities to those who shine through and show that they are willing to put the effort in.

The best thing that you can do when applying for anywhere is to be yourself. If you find that you aren't having to be yourself when applying that its unlikely that you will enjoy the job that you are applying for and perhaps you should have a think about what you actually want to do.