Optical Assistant Apprentice Review

Item: Optical Assistant Apprentice at Specsavers
Rating: 4.5
Author: Anonymous

at Specsavers

Level 3 Apprenticeship

Sales

Stourbridge, UK

Review Submitted: September 2025

Overall Rating

4.5 /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!

4.5/5 - Overview of Role

5/5 - Skills Development

4.4/5 - Structure and Support

Overview of Role

Please give an overview of your role and what this involves on a day-to-day basis:

5/5

Optical Assistant. Working 6 hours a day on shop floor, 1 hour during my learning. For those 6 hours, I'm:
Diagnosing patients and doing pre-testing
Collections for patients glasses
Dispensing patients glasses, fitment, adjustment.
For the hour, I'm:
Doing iLearn courses, writing about the things I've done on the shop floor in my journal.

To what extent do you enjoy your programme?

4/5

The start has some intentionally vague wording of how to begin my courses on iLearn. I lost a significant amount of time to my courses due to this as a result was behind from the get-go. Other than that the support, staff and time I've been given to focus on this has been perfect and I could not fault the experience I've had otherwise.

Skills Development

Have you learnt any new skills or developed existing skills?

5/5

Developed Customer Service and Customer Communication, while beginning and developing skills in Dispensing, Diagnostics, Collections, Admin, SOCRATES.

Structure and Support

How well organised/structured is your programme?

2/5

The structuring has since changed hence the extra point, however the iLearn course structure was intentionally flawed with misleading words such as 'You may want to' not giving direct instructions as someone that is only able to see things literally, its misleading at best and lost me a lot of time as I was not understanding that these were tasks I had to do.
The UI of the website is displayed quite well, with engaging icons, easy to search criteria and tags, as well as a myriad of other features sprinkled in, including store-set tasks which are very easy to access.
The changes since have applied workbooks to fill out as well as recommended time. It adds a lot of structure and organisation, but unfortunately this has come too late as I am now approaching the end of the course.

How much support do you receive from your employer?

5/5

Gave me all the help I requested and needed. No faults.

How much support do you receive from your training provider when working towards your qualifications?

5/5

Gave me all the help I needed with all I needed and then more to confirm I was comfortable in my position and able to flourish.

How well do you feel that your qualification (through your training provider) helps you to perform better in your role?

5/5

Gave me an aim - I understood what level I needed to be in order to be a fully fledged qualified worker and sets a very high baseline for the Optical Assistant role.

Are there extra-curricular activities to get involved in at your work? (For example, any social activities, sports teams, or even professional networking events.)

5/5

N/A

Recommendations & Advice

Would you recommend Specsavers to a friend?

Yes

Why?

Welcoming environment and a huge team. Incredible working atmosphere fostered by new and old management alike finding the best path forward for the business with incredible benefits as staff.