Apprentice Buyer Review

Item: Apprentice Buyer at Balfour Beatty
Rating: 4.1
Author: Anonymous

at Balfour Beatty

Level 3 Apprenticeship

Procurement

Birmingham

Review Submitted: April 2026

Overall Rating

4.1 /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

4/5 - Skills Development

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

During my day to day I purchase necessary items for the HS2 project, such as steel, concrete, diesel, PPE, plant consumables etc. I also run SPMs to get feedback from site managers on supplier performance every month. There are some difficulties & challenges to the job but I believe that is what makes it exciting.

To what extent do you enjoy your programme?

4/5

I am enjoying the working aspect of my programme, my line manager is super supportive & everyone is very helpful! However the actual apprenticeship board/teaching sessions done by an outside company I find to be very long-winded and can be difficult to keep up to speed.

Skills Development

Have you learnt any new skills or developed existing skills?

4/5

I have learnt to be more organised & to keeps tabs on everything that is going on, such as deliveries etc. On top of that, my communicative skills have progressed as I have learnt to be more confident about what I am speaking about, as well as keeping others in loop & updated constantly.

Structure and Support

How well organised/structured is your programme?

3/5

I think my programme is somewhat well structured, there are set dates when learning sessions provided by the Apprentice Academy are completed, however I sometimes struggle to keep up to speed within them as they are long-winded being 3 hours long. My line manager is very supportive of my apprenticeship & will allow me the time to complete the necessary tasks for it.

How much support do you receive from your employer?

5/5

I receive a good amount of support from my employer

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

3/5

I have struggled with support from my training provider, I originally had a coach that told me the wrong exam to book, as well as send multiple teams invites for the same meeting all on different days - this made it difficult to keep organised. My new coach has provided more support to help me get back on track.

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

4/5

There are some things that were new to me when going through the topics, however some things I already had some knowledge on due to being in my role for over a month prior to the training by my training provider started.