Commercial and procurement apprentice Review

I work across the Grants and the Operational side of our commercial team. I support on Grants such as WISER and WCSSP. On the operational side I pick up procurement when needed and interact with the stakeholders in the business.

I have learnt how to use Microsoft more in depth as well as pro contract, the procurement cycle, how grants work, how to draft a contract amendment. How to use G-Cloud 13 and use the finance systems.

I enjoy the programme very much, the staff are extremely welcoming and friendly and are always there to support you. They encourage you to learn and help you to learn if you are struggling.

My programme is extremely well organised, however I do sometimes find the apprenticeship provider slightly less organised, having lessons moved around and sometimes not sending out the work promptly.

I received lots of support, my line manager and mentor are fantastic. They care and help me when needed with my studies and my work. The whole team has supported me when I struggled through a few exams which really helped me.

I receive a bit of support from the training provider, we have lessons most weeks. However we do not have mock tests like the other apprentices do nor do we get many practice questions. I feel it would have been useful to have more support from the training provider.

I feel my qualification has taught me so much, however my qualification does focus more on the private sector rather than the public. I do feel the qualification has helped me learn the procurement cycle, what to do in certain situations and how to do certain things which have been beneficial.

There are plenty of extra curricular activities. We have a sports day which I took part in last summer which was a lot of fun. We have clubs/ societies which can be found on Yammer and we are able to join. We also have work social events for birthdays or Christmas or team away days.

Yes

I would recommend to a friend as it is such a friendly work environment with lots of support and opportunities to grow your career and as a person. I think it is a wonderful place to work.

Learn a bit about the Met Office before you apply. Make sure you know what we do and what our future plans are as well as our strategy and see if you can intertwine your experiences with the strategy and how you can develop.