Engineering Higher Apprentice Review

I rotate around multiple placements in my first few years, getting a wide understanding of the different areas in the engineering function in the company. The details are classified but they tend to include communicating with internal and external stakeholders, working with data, working with the systems on the Submarine and attending meetings.

I haven't had much chance to develop my engineering skills due to the focus of my placements so far, but I've been growing my communication skills, my work ethic, my approach to collaboration and how I approach difficult tasks. In my future placements I hope to gain more hands-on engineering experience.

I generally enjoy the day-to-day work, but when there is a lull in work being given my my placement it can be boring at times. There are lots of opportunities to gain new skills and take part in fun engagement project through Stretch projects and as a STEM Ambassador which add variety to the course.

The programme is reasonably structured but there is still uncertainty surrounding what the course looks like over the 5 years- how long we are in our final placement before it becomes our full-time role when we exit the scheme, how many years we study for our BEng over, etc. Also, our placements are generally organised by a person in Early Careers who doesn't have time to understand what we skills we need to develop before assigning us to a new placement.

Lots of support is available through an externally-run Employee Assistance Programme and a mental health app, and the people who work for the company are generally supportive. The Early Careers function provides support when it's needed and every few months they check in with us to actively ask if we could use extra support.

Furness College is currently seriously understaffed. Half of our teachers are part-time or agency staff, and the temporary agency staff don't understand the course content enough to confidently teach us the material before our exams. The teaching is very variable in quality, there is not enough support and they don't seem to understand that we don;t have the tie to study much outside of college because of our jobs.

We are being "taught" the content to pass our exams but this is mostly irrelevant to our day-to-day jobs. The course content is decided by UCLan but no effort is made to make the teaching relevant to our roles, the course is just seen as a hurdle to jump before we get to the next qualification.

There are some opportunities for taking on opportunities outside of your day job, like stretch projects and being a STEM ambassador (going into schools and engaging with young people about engineering), but there are very little social opportunities due to the size of the company. Some teams have nights out but the social experience varies a lot from area to area and course to course.

Yes

BAE is a big company that works on lots of exciting, complex, large-scale engineering projects and there are lots of opportunities to do secondments and gain lots of transferable skills, but also when you leave the apprenticeship there are chances to transfer to BAE roles around the country and the world.

The security aspect of applying to BAE Systems is very thorough and can take a while, so make sure there aren't any issues that could cause problems further down the line and make sure you have a good referee who is happy to be used as a reference a number of times.