Trainee Engineer Review

I'm a Trainee Telecomms engineer with Openreach. My daily tasks, roles and responsibilities involve light and medium cabling, as a part of Openreach's Rural 20 FTTP build plan. This involves using mechanical and electronic equipment and machinery such as winches, hoists, fibre blowing machines, cable trailers, vehicle based PTO's etc

As this is a complete career change of direction for myself, after being made redundant at the end of 2019, I've learnt a lot of new skills in my time as an apprentice. These include all aspects of telecomms engineering such as cabling techniques, using the associated tools and machinery, road works set up and guarding etc.

So far I've found the programme to be very enjoyable. Working as part of a team I've worked alongside and met some great colleagues. Everyone has been more than willing to help, explain and answer questions etc. As a complete career change, the whole experience of becoming a apprentice/trainee again in my 40's has been much better than I was expecting.

Having joined Openreach in the middle of the Coronavirus I feel the programme has been as well organised and delivered as I can expect it to be. With the induction week at Yarnfield and my training weeks in Bradford all being conducted in Covid secure locations and manners, it all felt safe and well organised. Due to CV19 and Openreach switching to the Standard from NVQ's, the start of the programme once out of training felt a little slow, but given the circumstances I think that's to be expected.

I personally feel I've received an excellent level of support from everyone I've encountered within Openreach and their external training providers etc within my apprenticeship so far. My manager has been really supportive, my colleagues always happy to take time to help/assist/answer questions etc and there's plenty of support available via Apprentice Point online.

Much as my answer to the previous question, I feel I've received a great level of support from the Learning and Development team, firstly as BT and now as Openreach as the L&D has been integrated back in to Openreach now. My tutor has always been happy and willing to help whenever I've needed some assistance.

As a newcomer to the telecomms engineering field, the qualification that I'm currently working towards via my apprenticeship is, in every sense, absolutely vital. The team working and buddying part of my role, and the apprenticeship, has been vital in my learning of the knowledge, skills and behaviours I'll need as my career journey progresses.

As I would very much hope you can appreciate, having joined Openreach and began my apprenticeship during the CV19 pandemic times has severely limited the chances and opportunities for things like team gettogethers, social events and the like to happen. We have regular Teams calls, the Openreach Workplace is always lively, and hopefully things like socials will return in time.

Yes

Even before my official day 1 of actually joining Openreach I've felt very welcomed, supported and valued. Even as a 41 year old (at time of joining) undertaking an apprenticeship and making a complete career change due to being made redundant. Lot's of support, great colleagues and a good salary package for an apprentice engineer.

Be yourself, never be afraid to ask questions and always put yourself out there during the interview process (mine was done via recording answers to video questions). Don't panic at the assessment day, the technical assessment is fairly straightforward and the interviewers made me feel really relaxed. Enjoy the ride that is the onboarding process and your training week(s) at Yarnfield. It's an experience, even for me during the Covid pandemic. This was a complete career change for me, so go for it even if you have no prior experience in the telecomms field.