APEP apprentice Review

I am an APEP apprentice, in my role I shadow and support engineers, allowing me to learn and take on my own projects in the future. In my role there are lots of opportunities for growth and working with new things.

At JLR the structure is good, we plan what I am going to learn with my mentor and work on developing new skills. The planning from the university is quite last minute, we are often told things late and don't have much time to prepare for modules before they start.

JLR is extremely supportive and offer a multitude of wellness and mental health help. They also offer lunchtime exercise lessons at some sites and there are people from different departments trained in mental health first aid if anyone ever needed someone to talk to.

The support shown by the training provider is quite poor, support is available but this is limited and feels like it more applies to full time students. Not much support is shown with assessments and a high pressure environment is created surrounding exams, as there aren't really people to talk to about it. Module tutors do provide a feedback form but not all of them take the feedback on board.

The qualification is in engineering, so the modules at university are needed to become a competent engineer. The course rarely uses real experiences and most situations are theoretical and taught from a classroom. Some of the modules include using paper work such as risk assessments from departments, but not much practical or real work is assessed. Some of the university work comes in helpful for my day to day role but it is mainly just for learning and not really applied to my role, although different roles will use different skills.

Yes

I have had a really good start to JLR, everyone that I have met has been really friendly and happy to help. They offer lots of events to get involved with the company and have many great initiatives such as 'invest in you' where every employee is given £200 to learn something new (these are pre approved by JLR). JLR invests a lot into the welfare of their employees and remain to be the best company I have worked for.