Finance Higher Apprentice Review

I rotate around the various Finance functions within the business, including Project Accounting, Cost Base and Governance. My day-to-day role varies based on my placement; currently a lot of my time is spent preparing financial documents such as CSRs and SSRs with a focus on monthly budgets and cash forecasting.

Through the apprenticeship I have gained a significant amount of confidence in my ability to independently complete tasks to a high standard and also my ability to speak publicly. New skills I've learnt all relate to the technical knowledge of accounting and shadowing managers/mentors etc to effectively learn the role I'm carrying out.

I greatly enjoy my programme as there is a lot of scope in a relatively small function. In my day-to-day role I get a lot of exposure to our customer and also the other functions which is valuable experience and often brings some good insight into to the rest of the business.

My programme is very well structured as it has been running for a number of years and benefited from plenty of feedback. There is a large focus from senior management, all the way up to the Directors, on the development of apprentices and the Finance function as a whole which ensures that we are well-trained with plenty of opportunities and support.

My employer provides significant support to us as apprentices. We have staff whose sole purpose is focusing on our development and ensuring that we are succeeding in our placements and our learning, as well as maintaining a healthy work-life balance etc. There are also many individuals within the business that play a role in our development, all of whom are extremely helpful and interested in our well-being/development and actively try to assist where possible.

My training provider (Kaplan Financial) provides a lot of support; their website has a significant amount of resources to access and there's also the option to communicate with other students on the course as well as contacting the tutor carrying out your learning or contacting a generic email whereby any of the tutors can provide feedback.

My qualification has helped me to understand the basics of the work that I carry out; what we do, why we do it and how we do it. The later stages of the qualification are providing me with more knowledge that helps me perform better in my role as this focuses more on the human side (i.e. judgement and decision making) whereas the earlier learning focused more on financial accounting systems which are less relevant as much of this aspect is automated by ERP systems in my role (or is otherwise not relevant).

There is an abundance of extra-curricular activities at my work, the apprentice population is particularly good at organising social activities and ultimately providing a good base for networking. My employer also makes a good effort to create opportunities themselves including charity events and working in schools/colleges etc. Colleagues at work also frequently organise meals and day trips within the teams I've worked in.

Yes

BAE Systems are a massive business and offer a very enticing employment package, particularly through the apprenticeship scheme: it allows for you to gain your relevant qualifications (at no personal cost) whilst getting valuable experience through working in a full-time role. You're exposed to a variety of opportunities in many of its global locations and given real responsibility, but you're also supported where you feel it's needed - so you're never really out of your depth.

I would recommend spending a good amount of time researching the company and understanding as much of what they do as possible, as there is such a wide range of products that they produce and they operate out of many geographical locations. From there, I would suggest considering the route that you aim to take (e.g. apprenticeship, supported-study, full-time role) and learning about the different roles on offer and see which ones seems appropriate to you.