Technology Graduate Review

Virgin Media O2 is a fantastic place to start your career. Having completed both the internship and graduate programmes, I've been given the opportunity to work in multiple departments across our core technology areas. It was a great mixture of learning and applying what I had learnt to the various rotations I did. The salary is competitive and there is a great attitude towards work life balance, with flexible hours and a very mature approach to remote work. For the grad scheme, 6 month rotations do go by very quickly which can leave you feeling slightly unfulfilled when it comes to short term projects or work you end up leaving behind, but the benefit of this is the great network you build from the various roles you do across the business. The only real negative comes towards the end of the scheme; the process for rolling off is quite cumbersome and left me feeling drained and unmotivated. Unfortunately the only way to find a landing role is through applying to an open vacancy, so if the timing isn't right or the open positions don't fit your experience, it can leave you in limbo towards the end. All in all, this is a really worthwhile scheme and provides a great transition post uni into the world of business and technology.

I completed 4 roles across my time on the grad scheme including: Data Cloud Engineering, Radio Access Network Strategy & Architecture, Mobile Technical Trials and Digital Network Products.
Cloud Engineering was more hands on and involved provisioning cloud infrastructure through automated pipelines for various data teams. I enjoyed the technical learning in this role, but the team themselves weren't the easiest to work with.
RAN Strategy & Architecture was probably my favourite rotation, it combined technical learning with strategic thinking, and I was given the opportunity to run my own technical assessment on the feasibility of specialised services. 6 months probably wasn't enough for this rotation though
Mobile Technical Trials was my most fun rotation. In this one I travelled a lot and met amazing people across Government Departments and wider industry experts. My project was something I felt very passionately about, but again 6 months only really gave me enough time to scratch the surface
Digital Network Products was extremely eye opening. I sat in a team that was going through a large digital transformation programme, so I was involved in cutting edge work on topics such as Digital Twins and AI. My project fed into this new programme of work, but took a long time to match the strategic decisions of the department, and so when I left I felt like I'd only just got started. All in all though, this rotation was a good one

As an ex-intern I definitely felt as though I could contribute to wider business problems at times, but with how quickly 6 months flew by I did find it a struggle to make meaningful and impactful contributions to a teams specific function

I'd say very fairly for the salary and core benefits, but the wider benefits programme and ad-hoc benefits need a look into, some benefit more form these than others.

As an introduction to business it's hard to fault, but in the world of tech there are definitely some "legacy" areas that grads and interns probably shouldn't be working in if they want to future proof their careers, and the business should be more aware of this.

The support structure is fantastic with some many mentors, buddies and ex-grads on hand to help out. If anything, there's almost too many forums for formal support which can get confusing

Hard to fault, sometimes work can feel very slow and sometimes it can feel like the world is on fire, but having the flexibility we have is very beneficial

Very welcoming, very positive and there is a great push to provide an inclusive workspace for everyone. VMO2 is quite a cushy place to work though, which is nice, but if you're very ambitious that can be quite a hard thing to battle with

There is a real sense of belonging at VMO2 and great employee networks that support this, it's hard to fault

Yes

It's a great place to start, the salary is good and the attitude towards company culture and work life balance is the best I know of, particularly in comparison to friends who graduated at a similar time to me.

I've rated this 2 stars but don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. The variety of the grad rotations makes it hard to understand what your experience will be like before you start. Transitioning from uni to business is also quite profound and takes time to adapt to, I don't think the recruitment process can necessarily tackle this.