Apprentice Engineer (Fibre) Review

I am a fibre jointer and part of the fibre network delivery team. My job involves mainly working on fibre to the premises on new sites. I also do some work in telephone exchanges and "spine" work which is getting fibre from the exchange to a site. On site I do range of tasks from building and commissioning nodes with splitters and CBT's and fixing them in joint boxes underground to the actual plots themselves where I have to pull in lead-ins from CBT's to plots then either use connectors or customer splice points and fit capping externally. I also fit ONT's within plots and commission them. Some jobs are straight forward but others I have to fault find and deal with escalations and liase with colleagues within Openreach. I am responsible for my own timekeeping and use the "my jobs" app for job details. I work closely with mainly one colleague who I'm usually paired up with, sometimes I work as part of a larger team on certain tasks.

I have done both since starting with Openreach. I came with lots of customer care experience so those have naturally developed with me helping customers onsite and working alongside other trades and developers. I have learnt a lot about the processes and technicalities of my role which I knew nothing about previously. I have learnt to use lots of different tools and equipment and started to become a much better problem solver.

I have enjoyed completing my apprenticeship so far, from my early training experiences to my scheduled study days where I have managed to get a good amount of work done each time which has kept me on track and motivated to finish the course and succeed going forward. I have liked that study days have been in blocks of two days at a time but not too close together as this has helped me to make good progress throughout.

As written previously I am very happy with the structure of the programme, it has all fallen into place nicely and I have felt well supported at all times by my assessor who has offered excellent advice on study days as well as being available at other times when needed.

My employer has been very supportive, there has been no issue whatsoever with me having planned absences so that I can complete study days and my manager has offered to help in any way he can with things like witness testimonies or any other kind of evidence that I might need to complete my course.

My assessor has been really supportive and fully available to help when needed, she has explained the process really well from day one and has been encouraging but at the same time let me get on with my work. She has offered constructive feedback when reviewing modules with me prior to me submitting them which has been really useful and she has been contactable through phone, email and Skype!

I feel that much of the apprenticeship seems to be relating to safety topics (which I like as safety is paramount in Openreach!) and also ICT which is relevant to my role as most of what I do involves some form of ICT use. There have been times where I've struggled to see how some of the items are relevant to what I do but I guess it's hard to cater for apprentices from different work places.

Yes I'm sure that there are, however I have not looked into this as personally that's not the kind of thing that I would be interested in as I find that my time when I am not working is busy and involved. There was an unofficial Christmas party for the team.

Yes

This is the kind of career that I have always been trying to find! I have had many different jobs over the years but I feel that this is the best yet by far. Openreach is a huge company and part of BT group which is even bigger so I feel that the opportunities for progression are clear even from this early stage, my work/life balance is much better now (4 day weeks) money is good and will improve over time and the job is really interesting and varied plus you get a new van and lots of tools and equipment.

Just take it in your stride like I did. Don't over think it all, they just want to see that you have strong core values and a good work ethic, be yourself, smile and be interested to learn. There is an awful lot to learn but I found that once you get into it its not as daunting as it seems, my training group of 8 was an amazing bunch of people and the trainers from L&D were mostly excellent and a credit to Openreach.