Heavy Vehicle Mechanic (apprentice) Review

As a 3rd year apprentice heavy vehicle technician, I am able to work more unsupervised and can be given my own jobs/vehicles to work on. These then get QC'd by a qualified person to check my work is to a high standard. Day to day I service and repair HGV's

I have learned everything about this type of work as before working here I had little or no mechanical knowledge, especially relating to heavy goods vehicles, and in particular the types of vehicles Babcock work on (military). The training provider has been good in developing my knowledge so that I cab implement it at work,

There has been many ups and downs within my programme. And as such I have not enjoyed all of it. Mainly the lack of organisation within the programme and communication between the college and place of work. However I have really enjoyed learning new skills and developing my knowledge of engineering.

This has been one of the main problems with my apprenticeship. My intake was the first to use a "block release" method of learning and as such a previously unused training provider was used. The college we use has also never run a HGV course before and has sometimes struggles to structure the learning properly to our needs. There has also been a major lack of communication between the college and employer.

The amount of support received by my employer has definitely improved recently, in the 3rd year of the programme. To begin with we (apprentices) were largely ignored and classed as unimportant, and even a hinderance to the rest of the workforce. There are still problems with support in that we are the bottom of the pile and our needs do not seem to be as important as those of the qualified workforce.

There has always been a lack of communication between us and the college, unless we are physically on site on a 3 week block. I am now approaching my EPA and feel that I am mostly underprepared for it. There has been a lot of confusion over the duration of the course and sometimes this has meant that we feel unsupported and kept in the dark.

Without a doubt I have learned a lot through the college. Not so much practically but more the theoretical side of mechanics and engineering. I enjoy learning how and why things work the way they do as this helps me perform better practically. Before starting this apprenticeship I had no mechanical knowledge, now I feel mostly competent at work.

No, there are no activities outside of work that the apprentices or the rest of the workforce are engaged in. When we clock out of work then we don't see or hear from our colleagues until we clock back in again. We have tried to start an apprentice teambuilding even many times but it has always been stopped by higher management or not been apporved.

No

I just don't feel that my experience on my apprenticeship has been as good as it could be. And there have been times where it has been downright terrible. The management structure is hugely complicated and the apprentice management team is non existent in terms of daily help/support. I also feel that after completing my apprenticeship I would still be unprepared and under skilled to work in any other environment other than Babcock.

For others thinking of applying to Babcock, particularly in the DSG or Land sector, I would say manage your expectations. Because Babcock are very good at saying all the right things, and making everything sound amazing on paper and in marketing, however in reality they seem to fail to deliver. However the work is interesting, when there is enough work in the workshop and when the spares/parts actually turn up.