Engineering Technician Apprentice Review

Item: Engineering Technician Apprentice at BAE Systems
Rating: 2.3
Author: Anonymous

at BAE Systems

Level 3 Apprenticeship

Aeronautical and Aerospace Engineering

Warton, Lancashire

Review Submitted: April 2026

Overall Rating

2.3 /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!

2/5 - Overview of Role

3/5 - Skills Development

2.2/5 - Structure and Support

Overview of Role

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

2/5

I go to college every Monday (for which we are not paid all the hours we work), this lasts from 7:45 to 17:00 at Samlesbury. The rest of the week I am on placement at Warton where I have little meaningful work, and am currently struggling to meet the criteria for engineering work that I need to log for my apprenticeship. We have had a very sudden change from 4 to 6 month placements that the apprentices were not consulted about; this has left us with very few placements as most of my cohort is still not sure where they want to work (and the limited placements left makes us think we will finish into an area we don't want to work in).

To what extent do you enjoy your programme?

2/5

College can be very calm and quiet but can very suddenly become hectic with assignments released with little or no warning, and sometimes the content for that assignment has not been fully covered when it was released, this is very stressful. Placements can range from engaging engineering work to listening in to meetings all day and sorting out your teams organisation page for them. When (or if) you have engineering work, it can be very interesting and the teams are often very helpful with allowing you to complete apprenticeship work alongside the placement work; this allows you to write job packs and reports for the level 3 standard and fulfil all criteria. Some placements have no engineering work or take so long to get started (I have spent 4 months of the 6 doing admin work) that there is no chance to write up meaningful work, or even complete any

Skills Development

Have you learnt any new skills or developed existing skills?

3/5

I have extended my CAD skills greatly on my last placement as it was on aircraft design, this was very interesting and engaging work that will flow down into the manufacturing area, so I feel like I have made an impact. On my current placement, I have learnt how to utilise Confluence and Jira management systems, however I feel like I should not be completing this and it does not give me an overview of the work this role would normally be completing. Whilst on many different placements, you will definitely learn or enhance your computer skills, however whether it is engineering specific is dependent on the placement.

Structure and Support

How well organised/structured is your programme?

2/5

A lot of decisions are made last minute and with minimal apprentice contact. For example, the change to 6 month placements was sent out on 1 email without any prior comms and our skills coaches found out when all the apprentices started asking about it; another example is as we are coming to the end of L3 college (moving on to HNC for technicians) we have been told that we have to attend a conversion course in the summer and must pass an exam if we have not received a merit or above across the whole of college. This has not been communicated to us before and many of us are now stressing that we have rushed assignments, not put our best work forward and will be forced to take an exam or we will not progress in the apprenticeship.

How much support do you receive from your employer?

3/5

Our skills coaches are very supporting and happy to hear any concerns. They are very good at trying to do the best for apprentices whilst also being fair, they are happy to kick up a fuss on behalf of apprentices if things are not being completed correctly. The higher management above skills coaches have minimal contact with us bar a few emails and do not effectively communicate with us (meaning we dont get much support from them as we have to go straight to skills coaches)

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

4/5

Skills coaches will do their best to support us when working towards the level 3 qualification (separate to college). They will talk us through anything we dont understand and are very happy to try and accommodate any personal issues in regards to deadlines. My skills coach has regular "LPR's" which are Learner Progress Reviews where we can have 1 to 1 meetings and describe any issues we have with college or placement and they will raise issues if needed.

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

1/5

My L3 qualification from college has no link to my placement work, this means that we are asked to complete work and expected to understand processes/software that we have no experience with. In most peoples minds, it makes sense to train apprentices on business grade CAD software and other technical processes before placements. We arent even told how to do easy tasks before placement, for example I went into my first placement with no idea how to book a desk and I didn't even know I had to; in my building there was luckily a free space but it is often the case that there is no space at all. This made me feel really embarrassed that literally everyone else in the building knows how to get a seat and im just stood there looking stupid.

Are there extra-curricular activities to get involved in at your work? (For example, any social activities, sports teams, or even professional networking events.)

1/5

Recommendations & Advice

Would you recommend BAE Systems to a friend?

Yes

Why?

It is a great engineering and aircraft company to work for and the employee support/benefits are really good. However the apprenticeships are very poorly organised and most of the time you just have to learn on the job or kick up a fuss to get anywhere.

What tips or advice would you give to others applying to BAE Systems?

Research the company beforehand, check reviews of apprenticeships. If you are looking at the Technician role, do not believe that the apprenticeship is 50% hands on and 50% desk based, it is about 90% desk based and if you would like to work hands on with aircraft, apply for the manufacturing (craft) role; they also get paid more due to a pay dispute within the company that creates conflict between the craft and technician apprentices.

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