Level 6 Software Engineering Apprenticeship Review

My role is to develop code on a day-to-day basis with the other apprentices on my team. This involves meeting up with my team to discuss the daily task, the requirement for the newsprint and the issues we encounter. Then I go off to test code, develop code and do online learning to teach myself how to code.

I have no experience in coding as such I had to teach myself how to code by doing an online course on the fundamentals of programming. I have been learning Java myself during work since the company provides no training to upskill me. Everything I have learned so far is all self-taught which isn't great because the whole point of an apprenticeship is to be trained up.

I do not enjoy the program and have been stressing out about my future ever since I started at the company as I have not received any training from my team. Thus, I can not contribute to the team effectively and have not learnt any coding skills that are essential to become a great software engineer.

The apprentice programme is not organised or structured at all. They do not interview the teams before they put you in them thus you might be placed on a team that doesn't have any software engineers which in my mind doesn't make any sense. Thus, this leads to no training since no one in the team has any experience but you are expected to code to a commercial standard with no support.

Only 3 months into the job and I had to set up a meeting with the apprentice managers to ask for support since I wasn't getting any training provided as promised by the company and as an apprenticeship programme in general. I told them how stressful and unhappy I was as I really wanted to work, learn and contribute to the company. I asked to switch teams so that I can be placed in one that has software engineers in them so that I can be trained up and do my job. I also found out during that time that all the software engineers from my year group had a similar problem and no one was receiving any training. Thus, I decided to set up a meeting with both the apprentice managers and all the software engineers to tell them that at least half of the software engineers want to quit already as a result. However, it's been 6 months now and nothing has been done, the apprentice managers have ignored us time after time when we contact them for support, no one has switched teams and both of the apprentice managers have quit their jobs. In addition, I asked my line manager if an experienced/senior software engineer can be added to the team to support the apprentices and interns on the team since there were no experienced software engineers on the team to teach us how to code. However, the answer I got was "if there are senior software engineers on the team then they would be doing my job". This doesn't make sense to me as the whole point in having one is to be trained up so that I can do my job.

They have Q&A sessions during the weeks that we aren't attending lectures which is useful to ask questions when we get stuck on assignments. They also have a team that supports you when writing academically and for grammar checks which is useful if you haven't written an academic paper before.

It doesn't help me during work at all, they expect you to learn everything from a course after only attending 3 lectures which equates to 9hrs of lectures per course which is hardly enough lecture hours to learn. The teaching staff aren't great either as they don't seem to know how to teach. For example, I had a coding class and the lecturer spends 2 and a half hours teaching us how to draw diagrams and only 10mins on how to actually code. The lecturer didn't even code along and just showed us pre-written code which isn't useful at all. Then we had to complete a coding assignment with only 10mins of code teaching time.

Yes, there are social activities at work. I have only attended one social event that was a great way to meet other apprentices at work. However, due to covid, there aren't as many meetups as there use to be during the apprenticeship programme as such I have not met many of the apprentices in my year group.

No

If you're an ambitious person who wants to learn as much as possible and wants to receive lots of training then this company isn't for you. The team section for apprentices is horrendous in this company as many have found out that you are just randomly selected and put on teams that may not be relevant for your role. If you ask for support to change teams as a result of that they essentially won't move you to another team even though you are being very reasonable. Also, your job is not guaranteed at the end of the apprenticeship if you're part of the Vodafone Group and your annual salary increase is not guaranteed either. As a result of this, I know that some of the apprentices have already quit and have received better job offers. Others are just staying for the degree and will be quitting after that. As for myself, I will not be staying at Vodafone because I have not received any training and the degree isn't worth staying for either.

Stop hiring software engineering apprentices until you have hired enough experienced/senior software engineers because this results in apprentices being placed in teams with no training or/and having no senior software engineers in them which go against the whole point of doing an apprenticeship. I would also hire more people to support the apprentices and to give them the authority to move you to another team since the process of moving someone to another team is either nonexistent or just takes a long time.