Fibre network engineer Review

Our job role was to run Fibre and copper cables to new plots, this involved receiving job packs detailing the connections and a route to take. Our aim was to follow the route given or re route but as long as the connection is made from the starting work point to the ending work point, then we rodded and roped the job and came back to cable it. If this was not possible, then a form was sent to civils to fix the blockage or clear the blockage.

I have learnt a lot of new skills, such as interaction with customers and getting used to site procedures, also working in various environments and under several different conditions it helped me broaden my experience and gained new skills from other engineers and also while working. This helped me to solve a lot of problems in jobs after that to make sure I can do the job to the best of my ability.

I enjoyed the programme a lot, it gave me a lot of new experiences and chances to learn new skills. It involved some working from home days to work on my NVQ and then other days out in the field to work mostly on a lot of new sites.

The structure was well made, it consisted of doing 13 items for NVQ alongside working out in the field, also training is provided and can only work as training, in some cases there has been a lack of training but this is due to COVID and the training centres being closed. After the centres open then the training will resume.

I have received a lot of support from employers and managers, they communicated well and ensured that I did have enough support and time to do my work. In some cases they did let me spend some time during work hours to complete training and gather evidence to submit for my NVQ work.

There was a lot of support, on my NVQ days, I had an assessor who was always available via Teams as everything is online due to COVID. He was always available and called me when I did need to speak to him and give me help on any queries I had and ensured that I always knew what work I had to do.

The qualifications helped, from the start to now, I can say that I have come a long way in terms of how I approach a job from start to finish. There has been a lot of little things that I have done which has enabled me to work more efficiently and also to keep up to date with the Box to box, A55 forms etc which have updated since I started but I have gotten used to doing it and always make sure the information is correct and being used to the format helps.

Due to covid there has not been much activities as we tend to stay in our bubbles and follow the guidelines, but I know that there tend to be networking events and I have gotten invites to some, but due to lockdowns some been online or cancelled and postponed to after restrictions end.

Yes

It provides a lot of opportunities and experiences to gain, there are also various departments so after your training year you can move onto a different task if you don't enjoy what you are doing currently. Additionally, the job is also enjoyable and the tasks vary from day to day so its never doing the same thing every day, it is always different.

To make sure that you are happy to doing physical work as there tends to be a lot in Cabling, but the other sections are jointing and Service delivery which involves to work at customers house. But just to be yourself, and have good communication skills and be able to work in a team as most tasks consist of working in a team.