IT Consultant Apprentice Review

Due to FDM Group being a consultancy firm, part of their business model is to recruit young professionals, upskill them in demanding areas, and then deploy them out on client site. I have been placed in two different companies (currently at my second placement) and the roles are very diverse. At my previous placement I was a product tooling administrator working within the product operations team, where my day today involved developing ways of working that would enable other teams to be more efficient and thus help increase efficiency across the department. In my current role, I am a Microsoft Power Platform developer, where my day to day involves governing the Power Platform and currently configuring the Power Platform SharePoint site.

Overall the program is positive, I have learned a lot of valuable skills and been able to get a lot of valuable experience. When I first joined the organisation, the initial upskilling phase was a bit rocky as my cohort was the first apprentices to use the new internal training facilities in the London office so there was some trouble with certain training modules and availability of resources to learn which meant that training took longer than expected. Furthermore, the training was fully remote as it was conducted by a coach based in the Leeds office so it made it quite difficult to get to know other people in the office as everyone we worked with was in the Leeds office. Once training was over, it felt more structured. I was getting approached for interviews with client companies, and was in frequent conversation with account managers. From that point onwards, things have felt more structured as once you are out of training it is business as usual for everyone else so things run more smoothly.

Overall support at FDM is good. I have both a line manager and mentor at FDM and I have received support from my line manager on various occasions. However, these situations were very unique to myself and are one-off situations rather than day-in, day-out support. My line manager is understanding and is always happy to answer questions, should I have any, and if there isn't an immediate answer, they take the time to help find one.
On the topic of supporting the academic part of the apprenticeship, recently there has been some changes that reduce the amount of available study time for apprentices which has made it more difficult to deliver high-quality assignments in the allocated time. To adapt to these changes apprentices were offered the ability to undergo a time management workshop to see how they could manage their time more effectively so that they could deliver the same standard of work as they were doing previously in the new reduced amount of time.
Ultimately, for work related matters or support impacting work, FDM is great. When it comes to communication with the training provider or supporting apprentices with their academic journey, I feel there is more to be desired, and a little more understanding of how changes being made will impact individuals could have more consideration before being implemented.

My training provider is very good. I feel that the information is useful and the staff there are attentive to student feedback. On many occasions I have managed to meet with my course leads over a teams call and ask my questions about an assignment or a topic in the course that I don't understand and get valuable feedback from them. Furthermore, every assignment comes back with feedback both in-line and overall feedback to ensure that students can act on it and improve for the next assignment. In addition, there are places inside of the app for support with all kinds of things such as academic writing, referencing guides, information about end-point assessments and portfolio writing.
The only downside is that some course leads do not work full-time which is perfectly fine, it is just difficult when they do not work on the same day as your study day or submission day as any queries you have cannot be answered until their next working day/following week in some cases. While I understand that this is not my training provider's fault directly, I believe that having a secondary point of contact for courses would be beneficial or make sure that course leads are working the same days as submission days so that students can ask their questions and get answers in more manageable time frames.

While I have gained a lot of valuable information, not everything I have learned is directly applicable to my role. Ultimately, it has given me a better understanding of the roles of others in the workplace and the fundamental principles of certain aspects of the technology industry. I do not feel that this reflects negatively on the training provider as I am provided with a lot of information about all avenues of the industry such as software development, cyber security, data analytics, it is just that I cannot use all of the information taught in these very different courses in my current role because as a consultant, my job is to solve the problem that the client has hired me for.

Yes

I have gained and am still gaining some invaluable experience which I would not get in the 3 years of doing a university degree. I am in a position where I get paid to do the things that university students talk about doing after their degree. I have got exposure into multiple organisations and networked with some amazing people that have given me many opportunities to learn and grow and I believe my apprenticeship has set me on a great pathway for the future.