Manufacturing Apprentice LVL 3 Review
at Thales
Level 3 Apprenticeship
Engineering, Manufacturing
Templecombe
Review Submitted: March 2026
Overall Rating
4 /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 Role
5/5
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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:
4/5
The role involves doing 6 month long placements throughout the different aspects of industry to help find where you are best suited i.e what you are good at and enjoy. my first 18 months was working on the different shop floors learning the products and basic operator skills followed by some time in QA and finally now in the Digital improvements team.
To what extent do you enjoy your programme?
4/5
I enjoy my programme as there is a large variety of aspects and different jobs to do. additionally we have had opportunities to go and travel to other sites and for early careers events such as our annual early careers event which is usually a trip to a theme park or something along those lines
Skills Development
Have you learnt any new skills or developed existing skills?
5/5
Coming out of secondry I had minimal engineering skills so I have learnt a lot in terms of physical manufacturing processes such as soldering or abrading additionally i have learnt a lot about the business side of manufacturing such as lean and quality.
Structure and Support
How well organised/structured is your programme?
4/5
The rotations we do at work are a very valuable learning experience and easily the most beneficial/ important part of the apprenticeship. As for the education side of things the units provided by the college for the most part haven't been particularly relevant to my job.
How much support do you receive from your employer?
5/5
Monthly meetings with the apprentice manager and college assessor to ask for guidance and seek help as well as a new training area on site where we have a space to talk to the apprentice manager whenever.
How much support do you receive from your training provider when working towards your qualifications?
3/5
the training provider usually provides helpful feedback and support. however we had a case where a new teacher wouldn't provide helpful feedback on assignments as he thought that it would be cheating in some way this lead to several apprentices over two different years/ cohorts having to re take the unit multiple times and later lead to the teacher contractually not being allowed to teach Thales apprentices anymore.
How well do you feel that your qualification (through your training provider) helps you to perform better in your role?
2/5
Only a couple of the units we did provided information and learning that has actually help me in my role all the other units we either don't use the skills or weren't in depth enough and thus didn't actually teach us anything new.
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
Lots of extra curriculars avaliable at Thales such as volunteering opportunities and sporting teams
Recommendations & Advice
Would you recommend Thales to a friend?
Yes
Why?
Although the college that Thales works with is generally sub par in many aspects. working at Thales and the skills taught and learnt through the rotations on site are extremely valuable and i will take with me throughout my career.
What tips or advice would you give to others applying to Thales?
Your Grades from your A levels/ GCSEs don't actually matter too much. you should apply even if you got low grades as Thales is looking more at you as a person by this I mean that it is a lot easier for Thales to teach you the skills and knowledge but it is much harder for them to teach you to be as person who wants to learn and enjoys engineering
