Graduate Systems Engineer Review
at BAE Systems
Graduate Scheme
Engineering
Filton
Review Submitted: October 2025
Overall Rating
4.2 /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
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Overview of the Role
4.6/5
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Experience & Company Culture
3/5
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Recommendations & Advice
Overview of the Role
Overall, how would you describe your experience at BAE Systems?
Pretty good. People are great, work is usually engaging, IT is terrible and some of the admin is monolithic but these problems are so shared it's practically community building when you can complain about common issues. Plus seems like they care somewhat about people so it's all working out.
What are the main responsibilities of the role and which elements of the role do you enjoy the most?
Doing case reports, (very easy) simulation work for said case reports, and interrogating other case reports for information to stick in our case reports. Simulation work is my favourite.
To what extent does your role give you the opportunity to contribute meaningfully and feel valued by your team?
4/5
Frankly with a few people leaving I know I am valuable to my team because my work is quite important for the deliverables so I am needed.
How does your compensation package - including perks & benefits - fairly remunerate you for the work you do?
4/5
Honestly the biggest work challenge is understanding the monolithic and opaque structures around and how the very many teams feed into the work I and others do, aside from that doing the main work isn't particularly hard so the compensation is decent enough.
How well do you feel the role is preparing you for your future career?
5/5
Joys of working on a big system: lots of places to go afterwards. And being so report heavy should help me to prep for other report focused roles to hop across too which I plan to engage with in maybe 2ish years time.
How would you rate the extent to which you were developing new or existing skills through formal training and your day-to-day role?
3/5
Skills: not very much. Knowledge: I'm developing quite a lot. There's a lot of training provided but so much of it is personal effectiveness or generic work so maybe doesn't develop me as far as otherwise but there's still plenty.
Experience & Company Culture
How is the support you receive?
5/5
If I wanted more support I know where to ask.
How is your work-life balance?
5/5
37 hours contracted a week (excluding lunch breaks). 8 hours Mon-Thur, 5 hours Friday and enjoy the half day everyone engages with. Combine that with 3 days in office hybrid working and honestly it's great. The people in the office are generally quite good too.
What is the organisational culture, values and general atmosphere like?
4/5
Excellent in values and culture and usually atmosphere but there's some occasionally dubious decisions made by higher ups (why are the headphones one eared) and the company is so opaque and impenetrable there's some major challenges.
How would you rate BAE Systems initiatives when it comes to equality, diversity, inclusion and accessibility?
5/5
They seem quite good at accommodating all people as far as reasonably possible so yeah seems decent (as far as I can tell). Has some fun quirks of only being able to hire UK nationals (strongly reduces racial diversity) and with all the schemes there's not as many women doing engineering in general (which hits gender diversity) but they definitely try.
How would you rate BAE Systems CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiatives?
4/5
They do them, seem alright for it, consider sustainability as far as reasonable. Maybe could do more but they're responsive to improvements and even have some outstanding items like soft plastic recycling.
Recommendations & Advice
Would you recommend BAE Systems to a friend?
Yes
Why?
I get money if they sign on with my referral. Also the company is growing and has quite good job security which in this economy can be quite rare.
How well did the role match your expectations based on the recruitment process?
3/5
I'm not a systems engineer I'm a support engineer which was unexpected and maybe it's on me but so much of our work is reports focused that it's not quite what I expected, but the simulation work feels engineery enough for me.
When considering the recruitment & onboarding process, have you any specific tips or advice you would give to others applying to BAE Systems?
Go to our JobsLive webinars where graduates (including me) will be doing a presentation and answering questions about the applications process. Oh and you can only apply to one job every 6 months or so so do pick a good job first time since you can't apply to them all.
