Pensions Assistant Apprentice Review

I help run the day to day administration of the pension schemes at the University of Oxford. This involves dealing with all the new starters who are joining the scheme as well as the leavers. I am then involved in the retirement process as well and I also help promote apprenticeships at careers events.

I have improved my organisational skills as I am now required to prioritise tasks to ensure that the important tasks are done in time. I have also developed my confidence skills through going to careers events and promoting apprenticeships to students in years 9-13 and this has allowed me to be able to confidently do presentations now.

I am thoroughly enjoying my programme currently as I was never expecting to enjoy the theory side of the pensions as much as I am and it is allowing me to better prepare for retirement. The course is well run and goes over everything from the origins of pensions all the way up to the end process which is paying the member their pension.

My programme is now well structured however at the start it was not very organised. I started in May and was not able to start the college aspect until early October even though it was meant to be starting in June. However now it is structured a lot better and the college is consistent.

I receive so much support from my employer. My manager is super supportive of my studies and will always give me time to focus on the studies. I then have weekly catch ups with colleagues to ensure everything is going well as well as the central apprenticeships team who is very supportive.

I have a good level of support from my skills coach who is able to help give me feedback on my exams and use their own knowledge to help me learn more about what I am learning. However sometimes their isn't always support there and I am not able to get a reply quickly sometimes.

The college work that I am learning gives me the knowledge about the work I am doing. I then use this to learn how we do that process in our team to ensure I am able to do that task as well as understanding the knowledge behind the task I am doing

There are plenty of social activities within the finance division to network with other teams in a more informal setting. There is also an apprenticeship network, where apprentices meet up every 6-8 weeks to do team building activities to improve the social skills as well as networking with other apprentices.

Yes

The University of Oxford is very supportive as an employer and they have hundreds of different apprenticeships available in a range of different areas. They predominantly operate through hybrid working which means employees will work partly at home as well as in the office which leads to a good work life balance.

When applying to be an apprentice at the University of Oxford, you should be yourself in the interview process. Apprentices aren't expected to know everything otherwise there would be no point getting the apprenticeship. The teams would rather see someone with a good personality that will fit the team better rather than having loads of work experience