Engineering Higher Apprentice Review

Item: Engineering Higher Apprentice at BAE Systems
Rating: 3
Author: Anonymous

at BAE Systems

Higher Level Apprenticeship

Engineering

Portsmouth

Review Submitted: March 2026

Overall Rating

3 /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!

3.5/5 - Overview of Role

5/5 - Skills Development

2.4/5 - Structure and Support

Overview of Role

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

4/5

My role doesn't really have a typical day. The tasks I'm given depend on what the Royal Navy need at the time and what tasking we have. We have daily meetings that tell us what's happening across the project and helps us prioritise against other factors. Weekly, we do a safety walk round of the ship to ensure things are fit for purpose. Other tasks involve updating drawings, writing solutions for design queries and going onboard ships to measure and picture components.

To what extent do you enjoy your programme?

3/5

I enjoy my job role, and I'm enjoying my placement at the moment. I don't like the HNC, or the delivery as I feel it's just too much on top of the job, and the online learning just isn't viable with my learning style.

Skills Development

Have you learnt any new skills or developed existing skills?

5/5

I've learnt how to adapt my level 3 college learning into the work environment and apply that knowledge into real world scenarios

Structure and Support

How well organised/structured is your programme?

4/5

The placement is structured well, and gives us opportunities to move around roles in the team prior to our exit roles.

How much support do you receive from your employer?

4/5

There's a good amount of support provided for mental health, neurodiversity and physical health issues.

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

1/5

There is a very limited amount of support for the HNC. The delivery is done online, and we only have access to our lecturers for that 1 day. As its online, we can't ask our lecturers questions earlier on in the assessment period, and there's been times that assignment grades haven't been received until 4+ weeks after the deadline, which leaves many students under a lot of stress over whether we've passed assignments, modules and even whether we've completed assignments right. We have a formative submission prior to summative, however there simply isn't enough feedback for us to make substantial progress on our assignments.