Apprentice Review

It depends on what area I am in, in this apprenticeship we are always moving from area to area, we normally spend 2-3 months in each area. Because of this it is hard to describe but most of the time the work is hands on, we will normally be working with someone and we will be able to shadow them for a while until we can do it ourselves.

Yes, everything I have learned so far is new, I never worked in this area before and because of this I am always learning, as there are so many areas in the workshop to go through you learn things all the time. College brings another element into it, as it is quite different from what I do at work

I do enjoy it a lot but I do believe that us as apprentices should be held more accountable and have more responsibility. I feel like sometimes we can just get by and other workers will see us a 'just an apprentice' which means they sometimes we will not have much to do and it can make the job uninteresting

The apprenticeship is great because they teach you a lot but it is very unstructured, we do not have clear goals or targets at work and can often spend time in an area and not really learn much at all. They also pull us away to work in other 'easy' areas when we are supposed to be somewhere else, which means we will lose valuable time in that area. Some areas of the programme are too long and it should be shortened, areas you can pick up in about a week sometimes are a month long.

My employer provides me with everything I need to succeed in my apprenticeship, if I have any issues I can come to them and hopefully it can get sorted out. They are present and can be easily reached which is good in case there are any matters that we need dealing with.

I get very good support from my training provider, they are always there to help and if we are failing behind they offer opportunities for us to catch up, which is important especially with the uncertainty of the last few years. They have caused us to fall behind with our knowledge and experience at college due to the time we have missed and the college have handled it brilliantly to get us caught up

I personally don't think the qualification is very relevant, although I imagine it would be difficult to find one that relates to what we do at work. I feel like the only relevancy from my qualification to what I do at work is the quality and attention to detail, and potentially for the bespoke placement. Most of the other areas of the business it seems a bit irrelevant

yes there are a few activities that we can do outside of work, they have a football team, racket team and a few more events that we can get involved with. They offer days out to schools where we can do activities with the kids and also careers day at schools. I'm fairly certain that if there was something you wanted to do that it didn't exist, if enough people wanted to do it, it could probably happen.

No

Although the pay is great and the apprenticeship is brilliant at the end of the day it is a factory job and people can get disappointed when they come in and work for Rolls-Royce and expect something different than what it is. For me I am unsure if I would want to stay here permanently and the only reason I enjoy it is because I am an apprentice and I am always moving areas. There are opportunities in the better, more varied areas but these are hard to come by, progression can be slow, at least in the area I work in and it is difficult to move area once you are settled in that area.

Work hard, don't think just because you are an apprentice you will get a good job, put 110% effort in, even if others aren't doing it, don't just follow the crowd and do what they do. Think of it of as 3 or 4 year long interview process, people are always noticing what you are doing, even if you think you are getting away with it. Stick with the long application process, it will take a few months to get interviews and a starting date. Research the company and practice the online tests, they will get your foot in the door