ICA Technician Review

my role as an ICA apprentice is to shadow and assist with planned preventative maintenance and reactive breakdown jobs, as an ICA technician i work on all aspects of automation within the water treatment process, making sure that the process runs smoothly and efficiently. we also are on call for breakdowns and are required to fix any automation issues with the plant.

In my role i have learnt lots of new skills as each day we are working on different equipment across our water treatment sites that I gain lots of use full experience with. we work with lots of technical controllers and water quality analysers , i have gain lots of new skills in being able to understand how to maintain and service these machines.

I enjoy my programme as there is something different to do every day and your not stuck doing the same job, we do a lot of reactive work that is very interesting as i enjoy fault finding and fixing things. however some days can be slow depending on the jobs coming in .

our programme is structured fairly well we have one day a week block release to college and the rest of our time is spent on site in person, however the college structure could be massively improved as there is not enough structure to have a smooth experience and you are sometimes wondering what to do next and exams dates are not clear and this causes stress on apprentices.

the support from Thames water is fairly good , we have monthly apprentice meetings to track our progress and ask questions about our program. however support from the college has not been as good . at Thames water you have a mentor and a line manager that you can go to if you have any issues or concerns.

the support from my training provider has not been as good as they have not been very good in organising enough staff to cover all apprentices, meaning that i have had to wait for 5+ months for a visit from my assessor which is supposed to be every 6 weeks or so.

there are some relevant things covered on the college course but there is a lot of things to do with my job that are not covered in college and i feel mixing in the groups of mechanical and ICA technicians is not a great idea as they do completely different jobs. this means that the college mainly focuses on one subject and this affects learning of others.

there are extra activity's outside of work that Thames run for example charity activity's and other sponsorship activity's that you can get involved in. there are often activity's within your specific team arranged by managers for team building and outside work interaction which are good to do.

Yes

Thames water is a good company to learn with they have lots of opportunity's and a verity of job roles to get involved in as well as lots of work place benefits and extras , everyone is friendly and work well , you feel like you want to come into work .

I would say that you need to be a team player and be comfortable with working with new people , and be able to listen and take in lots of information as the job role can be very complex and varies a lot. i recommend looking into every job in detail to find the perfect fit for you.