Early Careers Apprentice Review
at BBC
Higher Level Apprenticeship
Cyber Security
Belfast
Review Submitted: April 2025
Overall Rating
3.6 /5
The Overall Rating is the average of all the ratings given in each category. We take those individual ratings and combine them into one final score!
3/5
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Overview of Role
2/5
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Skills Development
3.8/5
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Structure and Support
Overview of Role
Please give an overview of your role and what this involves on a day-to-day basis:
3/5
Been working in the Software team on a project contained entirely within Microsoft's Power Apps platform, researching better ways to utilise the services that are available on this service while learning the pros and cons of each feature, and the security implications involved with using them in the service overall.
To what extent do you enjoy your programme?
3/5
It can be fun to work with at times, but when Microsoft decides to silently push an update to the platform we're using and doesn't show us any patch notes when they do this, it can be frustrating to attempt to figure out why exactly our tools are no longer working.
Skills Development
Have you learnt any new skills or developed existing skills?
2/5
Not necessarily. Being able to prototype and design a program within the Power Apps platform seems like it could be useful but I'd prefer to learn how to write code for software directly as I do programming as a hobby outside of the BBC but have barely even seen a line of code while working inside it. Power Automate manages everything on it's own.
Structure and Support
How well organised/structured is your programme?
4/5
The scope of the project doesn't shift too much but we do keep looking into alternative ways that we could have built it instead, or other services that we should be using on the platform that will make more manual parts of it easier. (such as deployment using Pipelines instead of by hand)
How much support do you receive from your employer?
4/5
My employer is supportive of the work that we do but they aren't too experienced with the Power Automate platform themselves, so they aren't able to provide much actual support with the platform. With that in mind however, I don't fully expect them to as it's not really their area
How much support do you receive from your training provider when working towards your qualifications?
4/5
I haven't really asked them for much help with my qualifications yet, I've mostly been working on that on my own silently, so I can't really judge how much support they can give because they've never had to. They always certainly would like to though, which is nice.
How well do you feel that your qualification (through your training provider) helps you to perform better in your role?
4/5
My qualifications in Cyber Security are seemingly completely separate from what I'm actually working on in the BBC. I would like it to be closer with what I'm doing to help me apply what I know in the real world but on Power Apps, everything is managed for me already.
Are there extra-curricular activities to get involved in at your work? (For example, any social activities, sports teams, or even professional networking events.)
3/5
There are some, but I haven't opted into any of them that I can avoid. I much prefer working from home wherever possible (side note: I live an hour away from the office) and most of my hobbies are entirely digital, which makes socialising with my peers actually a little challenging but that's nobody else's fault.
Recommendations & Advice
Would you recommend BBC to a friend?
Yes
Why?
There are a lot of departments that cover a lot of topics and areas. If there is something that you want to learn on a professional level then I believe the BBC is beyond capable of supporting your learning through experience with them as part of the teams working in that area.
What tips or advice would you give to others applying to BBC?
If possible, find a way to prove that you know what you know. Anyone can say that they know how to code on a variety of different projects for example, but if you are capable of showing what projects you've actually worked on (*especially* the ones you've done just for fun, like a discord bot or a website), it can really help the employer's view of you as a worker.
