Apprentice Maintenance Technician Review

Depending on the technology you are placed in will widely vary the work that you carry out day to day. Primarily you shadow the maintenance associates (the job role you will be in eventually) who work in your placed area, to understand their role and daily tasks. This can be from preventative maintenance to responding to breakdowns in production.

In the first year of the apprenticeship you are based in classroom learning and workshop skills. This is where you build the foundations of your knowledge which you take with you throughout the apprenticeship. The classroom learning is to obtain your Level 3 BTEC qualification that is a requirement of the course, and the workshop skills are for hand-fitting/machining/electrical disciplines.

I enjoy the apprenticeship as it aligns with what I enjoy doing - practical work with problem-solving. Often each day is totally different (after the first year of the course) as that is when you are placed within the different technologies alongside the maintenance associates, and because of the nature of the job (after the apprenticeship) this means that a whole range of work can be required in a day.

The apprenticeship has a good structure. It has been worked on and tested over the years that it has been running and is constantly improving. Whether this be from the diversity of learning within the course, to the management/processes in place to submit work. Overall, you are well looked after and any problems can be easily rectified with the appropriate manager.

There is a wide range of support on offer from BMW. Management at a closer level (your supervisor/line manager) is always easily contactable should you ever have any issues or queries. Your placement managers are contactable should you have difficulties whilst working in the technologies, or working alongside the maintenance associates.

The whole first year is handled by the training provider, Birmingham Metropolitan College (BMET). All classroom teaching is conducted on-site by tutors within the training school. The workshop skills are also taught by tutors from BMET, and all of this is assessed and counts towards your final grading during your learning. After the first year there is less dependency on BMET for learning (only one college day a week), but they still handle the important paperwork that counts towards the evidence of a successful apprenticeship (End Point Assessment).

Although the training in the first year is important to gaining a basic understanding of the skills required to work within Maintenance, ultimately this knowledge is still very low level in comparison to the type of work that is carried out in the role. Instead this fundamental knowledge is gained by working alongside the maintenance associates whilst placed, as this is more specific to the actual job.

(Pre-covid) There is often school events where the apprenticeship looks to advertise itself to the school-leaver audience and bring the apprenticeship's existence to their attention. There is always an open requirement for apprentices to help with these events. There can be different activities such as fundraising events for charities that BMW supports (like Alzheimer's UK), or the Cowley Road Carnival that MINI participates in yearly.

Yes

Depending on what you're interested in working in, there is most likely an accommodation for that interest by working within the BMW Group in the UK. There is more than just Maintenance engineering, such as other roles like IT or business apprenticeships too. All of this is similarly structured and will be a good start to a potential career within BMW, or give you skills to take elsewhere too.

Honesty is always a useful tool throughout the application process. Attempting to lie/bluff your way through questions won't work, as your answers will be scrutinised. That also being said, ensure that you do your research into the company, and into the factory, and be prepared to share this knowledge with them during the interview. Any projects you've worked on in school/college that can relate to the apprenticeship should DEFINITELY be shown to your interviewers. This is a great opportunity to display why you should be chosen, and why you're different to the other applicants.