Heavy vehicle technician Review

At the moment, I am on rotation on a section that works with land rovers, most of the work on these is general repairs and maintenance, but can involve major repairs i.e. chassis realignment. As well as this, we have been doing more preventative maintenance due to the ageing fleet having rust issues.

I have learnt a number of new skills both at the workplace and at collage. These include; vehicle inspections, welding, soldering, brazing, general machining and fitment and removal of components. As well as this, I have developed my existing knowledge of general mechanics, health and safety and tooling doing collage and work.

I enjoy the current work that I am doing on land rovers as this is the work that I joined the company to do, but I have only got on this section on the last year of my apprenticeship. Before this, the apprenticeship was less enjoyable as I was working on sections less relevant to my job role and qualification.

The programme has only recently had any real structure due to new management. The structure and organisation have been put at detriment due to poor management early on in the apprenticeship, it also does not help that we have had multiple changes in management through the coerce so had a lack of consistency.

I have received a lot of support from my apprentice masters and section managers have been helpful and supportive when moving to different sections.

I feel that recently my employer has supported me in the run up to my upcoming exam at the end of my apprenticeship as they are allowing me to have revision sessions at work as well as providing me with resources I need. This was not the case for the previous years.

I feel that my training from the collage has been useful and helpful towards my job as it has been very relevant to understanding HGV and other vehicles, This is the main area where I have learnt the most due to multiple unrelated rotations at work not related to HGVs.

In the department that I am working in now, there have been a few social events (bowling and curry nights). These have been good to get to know the members of staff better.

No

I believe that the apprenticeship has been troublesome for a number of different reasons such as; non relevant rotations, poor management (until recently) and the lack of support from work towards collage (until recently). If there are major improvements then I might consider a recommendation to a friend, but if not then no.

I would say to have a clear idea of what you want to do in the company and relay this to management so hopefully you can get more experience on this particular area, as well as this it would be good to build up some knowledge on the area that you want to work in.