Technology Degree Apprentice Review

Within Accenture I am a software engineer and in my current role I help out on the integration and the Testing teams. I own the DEV1 environment and this means I spend a lot of time sorting out access to the environment to ensure everyone can view what they need but also not view too much as this can cause data breaches.

Within my time so far at accenture I have learnt many coding languages including: java script, java, css and html. I have also learnt a lot about creating integration flow diagrams, how to head a meeting of important people and all about how to create users in the Oracle cloud system. I would ideally like to get some industry recognized qualifications.

I enjoy the project side of my program due to my team being really helpful and supportive of my work. I find the uni side a lot more challenging to enjoy due to being in back to back lectures. This makes it extremely hard to concentrate. We also do not get a great amount of time to do our uni work which makes this very stressful at times. Other than this I really enjoy being in Accenture as a company and the work side of it is very enjoyable.

By Accenture as a company as a whole I feel very valued and most people will treat me as an equal to them despite being an apprentice. In some instances in my project we get given quite a lot more admin work as there is little time to train us - this means the work we get can be quite mundane and most projects dont put the time into helping us grow knowledge and we quite often get the long tasks involving copy and pasting etc.

Our programme is very well structured and there are many people to go to when we need help. There are contacts at uni, from work about uni, just about work, about the business as a whole, HR etc. This makes it really easy to get the right support that we need and if we have an issue it makes it a lot easier as there are specific people to tell and this means it gets escalated and sorted a lot quicker.

At university we dont get much out of lecture support as there purely is very little time for this support to happen. In the few cases support has beem asked for it takes sometimes over a month to get this due to the lack of free time we have - this can result in being taken out of vital lectures to recieve this help which then hinders learning.

The employer gives us a lot of support. I will get help within 10 minutes of bringing up an issue and our HR adviser is really nice and very easy to talk to about issues. This is the same with our careers counselor and most others at accenture. Everyones attitude towards support is great and you can tell they all have our best interests at heart which makes it a lot easier to talk to people in regards to issues as you know they will be helped/sorted.

Our salary is generous but due to being based in london it is still very difficult to get buy if you were to rent a flat etc. Travel takes 1/5 out of your salary (and I live in london). Which means this apprenticeship wouldnt work that well if you weren't living with your parents etc in London as you would barely make enough money to eat etc. If you are living in london the salary is good but you do end up spending most of it on networking events, travel and lunches.

There are lots of clubs and events to attend but as an apprentice these are rarely aimed at us or we are not told about these. TAG events happen probably 4/5 times a year which are made for us. The main issue is finding a new project it really helps if you have a network within accenture but due to not being told about network events this is difficult to get a network and therefore makes it difficult to find projects.

Yes

The company is a great place to work for and I really enjoy it. The people who work at accenture are all really nice and helpful and they help with any work you are unsure of. The apprenticeship is a really good way of getting a degree and experience in the work place. Despite it being challenging to balance your time; the apprenticeship and the company I would definitely recommend.

Make sure you do actually want the job and you do actually love tech! Theres no point applying for the job if you dont as its all about tech. At the interview I would say just be yourself - the interviewers are all lovely and you need a certain personality to work within the company so dont fake it or you may not fit in! Its very helpful if you have some background in ICT/Computing or you are just very willing to learn.