HGV Apprentice Review

I am currently a heavy vehicle apprentice at Babcock International which is a 3 year apprenticeship. Over my course, I go on rotations around the company working on different sections around the business to widen my experience and knowledge. Work varies from small projects to big projects. Every day varies which is exciting and makes the job interesting.

Generally, the structure of our apprenticeship programme could definitely improve as it is not very well managed. This could be as the programme had several different apprentice managers during the apprenticeship and also the college where we study is not great. But the company is trying to fix this the best they can going forward and have understood the areas of improvement.

I received support during the apprenticeship from my apprentice masters on the sections and rotations I have been on. They have been helpful and supportive when moving to different sections and understanding the work and adapting to other sections quickly. Sometimes, it is not clear how long we are on the section for or when we are moving to another section so there is no plan of that, which I think would be beneficial.

I receive a lot of support from my training provider.

Generally, our training provider is Warwickshire College. Theory and practical are relevant for exams working towards our end qualification, but there are some areas they could improve such as communication, organisation and structure of plan when we are there for block releases. Through our 2nd year, we had to change exam boards from IMI to Auto axel due to issues from previous exams board (IMI) as the exams were poorly written.

No

Personally, I would love to recommend it to a friend. But due to some set backs and problems that have occurred during the apprenticeship, I will not. If there were improvements in the coming years, I would definitely recommend it, but at this point in time improvements are needed to make it a better apprenticeship.