Electrical maintenance apprentice Review

I am an electrical maintainer apprentice . My job is to keep the various systems of site up and running with preventive and reactive measures. Day to day I look at systems and try to fault find what is wrong with them using what I have learnt. The training is very in depth and comprehensive. Hard but useful.

I've completely learnt electrical theory and engineering from scratch and developed my fault finding abilities from computer science. It's made me realise that anyone could do this, no matter what your background. If you're interested and willing to put in the work would could learn some very interesting skills not only relivant to your job, but also life.

Originally, I didn't think I was enjoying the appretciship. The learning stage in the academy I found quite boring. All I wanted to do was go out and start real work on real systems. I now realise it was a necessary evil, and now that I am out on placement I couldn't enjoy my job more!

We are one of the first years to switch to switch from a framework appretciship to a standards based one. This has meant the program has been a bit hectic but it's no one person's fault. Despite that, what the company want from you is clearly laid out and your targets are known and reachable.

Personally, I find our company won't come to you if you're struggling. Now don't take this the wrong way, the company is more than happy to provide you with support if you need it, however, you need to be the one to initiate that conversation. Otherwise support might be a little hard with the number of people they manage.

The internal teaching done by our companies instructors is amazing - can't fault it. However, the college we get sent to that helps us aquire our qualification was abysmal. We had problem after problem after problem. Luckily AWE was there to back us up every step of the way and since all this they've changed provider and I believe things have gotten a lot better.

Personally, a lot of the stuff we learnt on the course was irrelevant to our subject matter. I work on big electrical systems and college was teaching us about electronics, auto cad and business design. It had no real relevance to what I was doing at work. I can't knock the skills however, they're useful skills just not helpful for the work I'm doing.

There is a social society that organises social events and other events for charity. not as many as I'd like to see, but due to the nature of the company I think that's to be expected. There is a recreational society you can get a cheap membership too should you be an apprentice.

Yes

I've already reccomended this to two friends who've got the job, and they both agree it was the best descision of their life. I think our company gives you a really interesting opportunity to work in environments you will never see and that knowledge can push you way beyond in your future career.

The work flow in this company is very slow, so you should be prepared for that. It isn't an incentive for laziness, the work we do is incredibly interesting. However you will find yourself doing more paperwork and waiting on simple things because of the nature of our job. Other than that, if you keep an open mind then you'll be sure to love it!