Apprentice Engineering technician Review

I am an Apprentice Engineering Technician at the MINI plant in oxford, Cowley. I’m in my first year so I am based in the onsite training school, the MINIcademy. i have a college day on Monday where i do a BTEC qualification, and the rest of the week is spent in the workshop.

On my college days I am doing level 3 sub diploma BTEC qualification. In the workshop i am doing a PEO covering machining, electrical, and mechanical. After this year I will start an honours degree in advanced manufacturing engineering. I have l learnt a lot of new skills in mechanical and electrical.

I am currently enjoying this program a lot. Having come from a UTC college I have already done a BTEC qualification in engineering so there is a lot of overlap this first year. However I am still learning new mechanical and electrical skills which I am enjoying more than I would going to UNI as it is more practical.

I feel very values by BMW Group because of the amount of support I have received and the amount of effort they have put into finding good teachers and getting good learning resources. The level of support is far more then I received at school. All of the managers will go out of their way to help you with any difficulties you have weather its work or personal.

My training program is more structured towards people with very little engineering background. There are multiple training programs run together for mechanical apprentices, technician apprentices, as well as apprentices from other companies. This can make knowing the structure of your program difficult. It can also get repetitive if you already have some of the qualifications you are training for like me. This could be improved by making the structure of each program clear and being more flexible with the qualifications.

I receive a lot of support from the training provider which is BMet. They run the internal training school and my qualifications. The workshop tutors are mostly very supportive and will make sure you understand everything before moving on. Because of the small class size it feels like its almost one to one tuition. The BTEC teachers are less supportive but still try to help as much as they can usually.

I receive an incredible amount of support from my managers whether it’s a personal or work problem. They have always gone out of their way to make sure the training we get as apprentices is the best we could possibly get and that we get the best work experience.

The salary is large enough for me to cover my all living expenses, with regular pay rises for good performance on the program. I now live in Oxford so need to pay for all my living costs myself, which I can comfortably do and still build up my savings. I also have access to the company car scheme which at my age saves me a lot on car insurance, and driving nice cars in a pretty good bonus.

There isn’t as many opportunities for apprentices outside of the program as I would have hoped. One activity offered is the mountain challenge which is open to the whole plant to participate in, however that’s about it. This is because most of the training is included on the course so anything extra is seen as unnecessary.

Yes

I would defiantly recommend this apprenticeship to a friend over going to university. I am put through an honours degree, and get work experiences, and all without any debit. The salary is enough to save for live off too. I feel like it offers more support than a university ever could.

I would recommend showing you get some engineering knowledge trough a hobby or volunteering at motorsport team. When recruiting they are looking for enthusiastic people with good learning behaviour, not particularly people who know everything. They say knowledge can be taught but behaviour cannot. If you get through to the assessment day, dress smart and be friendly to everyone.