Engineering Technician Review

In BAE Systems (Brough), the first year sends you to live in a hotel in Preston. You work over there among the other sites' apprentices and learn a variety of engineering skills such as electrical, machining, fitting and CAD. You return home each weekend. After having living there for a year, you return to the Brough site and are integrated into the business and have three years of working around the site in different departments, seeing where you would like to end up working while also ticking the criteria to say you are a qualified engineer. Each week there is also a day at college in which you learn some of the academic skills that will be used in your job. The first year in Preston was first class. Looked after well and no expenses spared in terms of education. 10/10 The Brough site is a high quality working environment that always keeps their employees happy. There is a lot going on, but not all can be done by apprentices, leaving some periods without work to do. 7/10 The college has been renovated and is clean and the tutors are good however there is too much free time within the day. We could achieve the same amount in half the time. That said, I have learnt a lot while being there. 7/10

The biggest variety of skills was learnt in Preston. This including building circuits and looms, machining aluminium and plastics and drawing up and making assemblies using CAD and the workshop. Although not all relevant to the specific job you will end up with, it gives a very good view of the different sides of the company and having that knowledge allows you to figure out if something on your screen will actually be able to work in a workshop or circuit board. Back at Brough I have learnt a lot more about maturing into a business. Time keeping, work organisation, documents and forms and representing the company are all massive changes that I struggled with when first starting yet are second nature now. The college days have also expanded on things I may not have encountered in the business yet, setting me up for tasks I will face in the future. The subjects currently being studied are: maths; materials; health & safety and communications.

I enjoyed the first year a great deal. I first had reservations that living away from my friends and family would be difficult however BAE always check up on you and make sure you are doing okay for money, your mental health, and travelling arrangements to and from the centre. I'd go out with the other site and Brough's apprentices for meals and activities in the area with the generous allowances given. The actually program had lots of varied tasks in and out of the workplace including making from carbon fibre, charity work at a local hospice in summer, wiring up an alarm system and building miniature electric cars using the skills we learnt over the year to race. Back at Brough, the busier you are the more you enjoy yourself. There are better placements within our time than others for this. They will keep you busy and the time flies by and you can feel yourself becoming a better employee and becoming more and more suited for the job. However, there are times in which it's a struggle due to the lack of things to do. The company works on a flexible work schedule in which you work the hours you want, so long as the hours you have done at up to a certain total. This is a blessing for if you need to get to an appointment or you need to get to a shop before it closes. It is also great for if you need to take a day off, it won't come out of your holidays and you just work the balance of hours outstanding. It can be painful for when there is nothing to do.

When you start, you need to apply for a specific job type (fitter/technical) and from there all of your training is geared towards that from then on. There is a certain criteria you must hit before you end the apprenticeship and it is well organised by the Skills and Development coach. Once back on site, they will ask where they will need staff in 3 years time and the list of placements will be based around that. It is all done well in advance but there is still wiggle room in case circumstances change. It has been the same for years as it works.

Every week, the skills and development coach will come to you personally and ask how you are doing and if they can do anything to help you. Brough is a smaller site and so each apprentice gets a chance to have their say and detailed feedback. BAE Systems is a very fair company and will understand personal issues outside work and how they may affect work. They will always try and have you be the best you can be, paying for training courses that may not be directly related to the current position but help you become a more rounded engineer. This is the same while staying it Preston but turned to 11 due to the company being responsible for your food, stay and travel.

As said previously, the feedback is face to face and often. They come to you individually and guide you through it as opposed to just saying it's wrong and handing it back. If you feel you aren't getting enough out of something then you feel comfortable speaking up and saying it could be improved. There is a specific person for any subject that you can speak to and the colleges do a good job at helping your understanding.

Within the company there are logs that must be complete to prove you have met certain criteria. It can also work the other way sometimes in that you push yourself to do more activities such as improving the business, taking part in more processes and being more all round professional. The college, although spaced out, does prepare you for hurdles you would have stumbled at if you'd not had the previous knowledge. If it was more concise within college, it'd be a 10.

There is the occasional football match involving the apprentices as well as networking events within and outside the site. STEM events are ways to let schools and colleges know about the world of engineering and show they can have a good impact to business. They help raise awareness for the company and also put you in contact with people outside the business, given a wider scope of the engineering in the country.

Yes

I have done many times, to many different kinds of people. The first year shows you all of the different sides of the air sector of engineering and you can find what works for you and where you will fit into the company. I would recommend for anyone with an interest in engineering because they will have a solid qualification even if at the end of the apprenticeship they want to move to a different company. Lots of opportunities for free qualifications paid for by the company and it's a business that will always look out for its employees. I would recommend coming here rather than university if you are unsure of what to do but sure you would like to go into engineering. It can supply diplomas down the line of completing the apprenticeship and has opportunities internationally.

You will have done lots of activities that will aid you in being an employee at BAE Systems, you are not expected to be the perfect engineer before you start. The apprenticeship is there to mould you and give you the opportunities to learn and better yourself. They are looking for people with potential so don't worry about having a large engineering background, just be sure that you have a hunger to have a big engineering future.