Apprentice Review

My role sits in a Cyber, Technology and Resilience department where I sit on an incident response management team. Here I deal with both cyber and tech incidents that occur / happen at external firms that the FCA regulate. Alongside this role, I also help with the cyber culture at the FCA.

I have developed lots of social skills throughout my apprenticeship so far, from talking to people with various backgrounds and expertise. I also have external people in my training sessions who I interact with. I have also learnt the basics of constructing emails, organisation culture and how to perform in a professional environment.

I have found my programme quite challenging, however I think a lot of the difficulties have originated from starting from home, virtually. This being said, the business have provided plenty of support to facilitate this, and I don't think my programme has been negatively affected as a cause of this.

I have a set training session day, where I complete training courses led by my learning instructor. This works links to the exams that I complete. And also have a portfolio that I am constructing and planning alongside, as well as a secondment opportunity to aid towards my apprenticeship programme.

My manager is extremely supportive and puts in lots of time and effort to ensure I am on the right track for success. My organisation is flexible with my apprenticeship requirements, and have been able (so far) to accommodate to these. My learning provider also has frequent meetings to check my progress.

My training provider presents training sessions every week which covers all criteria in the course that is necessary for the exams. I also have 1:1 meetings with them as well as progress reviews with them and my manager. These meetings allow for us to check my progress and identify any challenges.

It provides me with the knowledge that is necessary for me to complete my job role. Coming straight out of college, I did not have any previous knowledge or experience to lead me through my job role, so that context and information it provides has been beneficial for my understanding.

Yes however this has been difficult to engage in due to the nature of working from home. I have become a member of some 'women' orientated groups, as it has become evident that this is a very male dominated industry. This allows for information sharing and advice for women in this industry.

Yes

Because I think it has been a great place to kickstart my career. You are surrounded by a variety of people from different backgrounds, religions, ethnicities and genders however we are all one community. They have been supportive with my apprenticeship and I look forward to see where it'll take me.

To demonstrate your motivation for the job role, and what you can bring to the FCA. I found it particularly important to complete research on the background and overall context of the work the FCA does - the FCA covers many job roles so this research will demonstrate how keen and eager you are.