Aerofitter and inspector Review

Being integrated as part of the team and shadowing a fitter or inspector to go through the build or strip process of an aircraft engine. You always work with one other person who you watch do the job, or sometimes they’ll give you the reign of doing it whilst they watch you. We move around the workshop every 3 months to make sure we get a wide variety of training and do lots of different jobs whilst seeing different engine types

Developed all new skills and constantly doing so. Hadn’t been in an engineering workshop before I started so was learning pretty much from scratch. Even after being on a section for 2 months (out of the 3 month rotations) there is still a lot to learn and forever learning new ways to do things, new systems to memorise etc. Additionally each section has different processes and tools so constantly learning throughout the whole experience

I enjoy the program. Some parts can be quite disorganised and there are many fewer perks of being an apprentice than there would be when you’re a full time worker too. Often you get treated as a child even when many people are much older at 20+ Which is very patronising and disheartening. Additionally Different people aren’t taken into account, it’s not very personalised and everyone Gets put in the same boat, despite some performing better than others

It’s quite organised. College is probably the only downside as sometimes this can be disorganised. Saying that, second year has been much more organised than year one so it’s most certainly not all negative at all. Assessors are usually pretty organised and a lot of it works on a basis of if you’re organised; the people around you will be and people/ managers/ workers will be more willing to help

Not very much. Sometimes things are all over the place and don’t really know what’s going on so can’t help us. With covid we all got a 10% pay drop (or will when we go back to work) and this would be ok if we all lived at home, but I had to move hours for this job and pay rent etc, and when the salary is quite low already, 10% is just not an amount some of us can afford to loose. They’re not very personal depending on your situation which lets them down. Also had a poor experience with a temporary manager which didn’t take mental health concerns seriously, cared about my physical health but not my mental health. However, one of my managers saw me struggling on a trip away with work and was very supportive and kind

At both years of college I’ve received help towards qualifications. Often they’ll help you different amounts depending on how much work you put in which I think is a decent way of doing it. If they see you’re trying, they’ll do the best to help you. Sometimes lots of assignments come at once which isn’t ideal so in that sense could help us organise it a bit better but that’s still very achievable

Hand fitting in the first year and electronics was useful. I don’t really feel that most of the work is actually going to help in the job roll. For example, Business, Maths, mechanical principles etc, I feel a lot of the maths stuff is memory and to get us through the exam but then isn’t used further. If you go into the workshop most of the guys have no idea about maths and don’t use any of this at all, so in that sense it is a bit “jumping through hoops” type thing

No not really. I met some friends on the first week of the job and every week I spend time with them outside the working hours. I see some of the apprentices in my team outside of work too. But apart from that I don’t really know of social events or sports teams etc outside of work. But There is an apprentice association which I’m part of but don’t really find much of it interesting

Yes

It’s a good place to work. The people there are mainly helpful and willing to make sure you get the help you need. It’s a good company and a really great business to have on your CV. The qualification you Gain is also something you can use anywhere in the world and it’ll take you to many diffeeent companies. People are very friendly and there are lots of friends to make etc

To learn everything you can about jet engines, and it definitely helps to have an interest in that field so try and fill your brain up with all the info you can and spend a couple evenings becoming familiar with engines and the company. Just be yourself in the CV, everyone is very normal and much prefer people just being themselves- it’s definitely not as scary as it seems. For the interview Go in with a passion/ hobby and something that you love and enjoy speaking about