Vehicle Technician Review

Vehicle Technician, working in press cars/vehicle operations prepping show cars, royalty vehicles, celebrities vehicles. Basic mechanical and electrical work fixing and preparing vehicles. No responsibilities or projects as such. Work with various technicians completing tasks such as health checks, services, profiling of body panels, rework of trim. No external interactions, but work in an open workshop so interactions occur with other staff are just technicians, rarely speak to or see higher management.

I haven't learnt a lot in the two years that I have been completing the apprenticeship in terms or college work (btec). I have learnt more about the company and the processes within the company. I haven't been on any extra training courses as I have been trying to complete the core work for the btec qualification. I have managed to widen my skills and knowledge when it comes to vehicles and have been able to get hands on experience working with Jaguar Land Rover vehicles.

I enjoy the people that I work with and the environment that I work in. I do not enjoy college as it is very unorganised and I do not feel like I have learnt a lot, I have been taught how to write assignments and the content that needs to be written in the assignments but not the content itself. The apprenticeship as a whole has not met my expectations and has not lived up to what it said it should be like.

A lot of the time I do not feel valued by Jaguar Land Rover as an apprentice. When I am at work I do feel valued by the people that I am working with, for example other technicians and group leaders but I do not feel like I am able to progress myself and my ideas are not heard at the college. I do get involved in various tasks and activities at work but only when I am working with certain technicians. I feel like I am not valued by anyone higher up than a group leader.

The programme at college has little to no structure in terms of timetabling. I do not feel like I am offered much support, although I have been told that they will help me in any way I tend to have to complete a lot of my college work off my own back rather than having any lecture time to do with any given subject.

I receive a lot of support from my internal training manager but a lot of the time I feel like they are making excuses on why I can and cannot do things. I feel like I work hard and sometimes get distracted like nay normal person would but they are very quick to penalise you for a small lack in concentration. The support from college is practically non-existent.

I receive a lot of support from my employer especially group leaders and technicians that I work closely with. Management don't seem to want to get involved or show that they are being proactive in sorting any situation out even if they are doing it in the background. A lot of the time I feel like apprentices get pushed to the bottom of the pile.

The Jaguar Land Rover apprenticeship is very well paid, I am able to live away from my parents in rented accommodation even though the houses in the area that I work are pricey. I am able to afford to pay off a brand new car finance, although I do have very little money to play around with once I have paid all my bills due to the fact that the area that I need to live in is quite expensive.

There are lots of external events and placements available when working in this company although it is down to your managers decision whether or not apprentices are allowed to go on any external trips. In my department I have been denied any of these trips until I have completed my 3/4th year. We get a lot of discounts in various places such as gyms and restaurants which helps with socialising and brings the costs down considerably.

Yes

I would recommend them to work at JLR but I would advise them to not take on the apprenticeship and expect everything to be perfect. There are a lot of defects with working in the department that I am in especially being an apprentice. I would advise them to join the higher apprenticeship or go to university and apply for the graduate scheme instead. This is because the advanced apprenticeship is not very stretching and is no where near as organised as the higher.

Make sure that you know exactly what you want out of the job and read into each of the job roles very careful before deciding as there is very little chance of movement as an apprentice to move departments or progress.