Engineering Technician Apprentice Review

I do CAD (Computer Aided Drawing) on a day to day basis, this involes doing calculations adn general problem solving. I also do a lot of testing and checking of equipment that I have designed.

Yes, i have learnt a vast amount of new skills and heavily developed already existing ones. My CAD skills have improved hugely along with my communication skills and outside the box thinking.

I relaly enjoy the program, it is always interesting and there is a lot of new stuff going on at the moment, the prokects tat we get to work on are revolutionary and this will certainly help me to improve in the long run.

The leadership team are constantly saying that apprentice's are the future of the company due to the skills gap which is approaching fast. This is really reassuring as it makes you feel extremely valued as an employee.

The programme is well structured, with enough flexibility built into the system to be useful however not enough so that it can be exploited. Apart from a manager change midway through our programme the management team has remained very similar and stable in comparison to when it started.

I receive adequate suppoort from my college, they have undergone a bit transofrmation in the last couple of years so at points it has been a bit hit and miss, but now they are certainly improving and are in a much better position then a few years ago.

Everytime i have needed some support from BAE they have provided it, usually it was just a couple of hours of time to finish some assignments in work however some of the time it was a bit more major then that.

For the first year the salary did not meet my costs, i was working full time and for below 'classical' minimum wage. This wage was still significantly higher then the apprentice minimum wage however. That however is not a surprise due to the fact that we were in college full time in the first year. The salary since however has been rising rapidly and i can now comfortably live off of it.

Yes there are a significant amount of opportunities outside of work, these range from STEM activities with different local schools and business's to getting involved with a engineering institute such as ImechE.

Yes

Primarily because it is a great company to work for, they encourage personal development and genuinly believe that apprenticeships are the future, they also foster a great work/life balance with new flexible working systems.

Just go for it and apply away, the application process is quite intense however the board who will decide on your application have many years of experience behind them and they will be able to pick out people who have potential even if it is not immediatly obvious. There is no harm in applying for a role, even if you dont happen to get it.