EDAS Apprentice - Aero Review

The apprenticeship is placement based, my current day to day role involves a mix of desk work and hands on work for manufacturing planning tasks. Desk work involves using CAD systems and manufacturing planning systems and the hands on work involves working with systems on the shop floor.
Although my current placement involves a lot of work and is a enjoyable place to work, not all opportunities that myself or colleagues have had have involved this level of work and some placements although useful for learning are not as involved and have a lot of downtime associated with them.

The structure of the programme has been getting better recently however there are some more serious shortfalls. The idea of multiple placements giving a wide area of experience is good however this often leads to placements being completely random and if none of them align with your interests then this can be quite a miserable experience, some placements also don't give fulfilling work to complete as they see an apprentice as a free worker. Much has been done to filter out these experiences but there is still the issue of finding a placement with your specific career goals.

There has always been support where and when needed. Sometimes it can be difficult and some people specifically skills coaches need a push to get work marked, but every team I have personally been involved with have been extremely helpful, and where needed I have had the support in needed from the early careers team.

The internal training has an abundance in support, there are times where skills coaches are strained but they are for the most part very helpful and there when needed. Outside support for college however, is somewhat complicated, often times there have been problems with exams or assignments and changes either to the assessment itself or the deadline had to be made, we have had support when it was needed but there has been a lack of support to stop the problems from happening.

With the way the scheme is set up the further through the placements you go the better you get at a given role, the qualification requirements help guide you to what needs to be completed in placements but its the experience of the placements themselves that really give the performance benefit.

Yes

For all the shortcomings that the scheme has and the issues with college, there is plenty of support and the vast majority of the teams are supportive with the apprenticeship by giving work that we need to do in order to complete our requirements. The short experience within the placements has also helped me to perform much better in my roles already and made me feel much more autonomous within a team.