Level 3 advanced supply chain apprentice Review

Item: Level 3 advanced supply chain apprentice at BAE Systems
Rating: 4
Author: Anonymous

at BAE Systems

Level 3 Apprenticeship

Supply Chain Management

Samlesbury

Review Submitted: April 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 - Overview of Role

5/5 - Skills Development

3.8/5 - 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 current role is that of a production planner, we work to manage the production of parts - making sure that as a unit we are producing enough parts at the right time to fit into the next stage of production. We set weekly production lists and monitor the output of each part in the manufacturing process to ensure that we meet our goals. This can be challenging and highly technical, but also rewarding when it is done right.

To what extent do you enjoy your programme?

4/5

I think that my programme is relatively mixed, it offers a variety of different opportunities to work in different roles in placements that last 6 months - enough time to get accustomed to and comfortable with the work and team, but also short enough that you can move on if you dislike the role.

Skills Development

Have you learnt any new skills or developed existing skills?

5/5

I have learned a great deal of new skills from my placements, most notably in terms of my It skills with manipulating data and vastly improving on my Excel knowledge and ability. However, less tangible benefits have included becoming more confident in presenting and with speaking in large meetings. Actual production planning and proactive decision making skills have also been obvious benefits.

Structure and Support

How well organised/structured is your programme?

3/5

Typically, the programme is relatively well structured in terms of content learned at college, as well as the four separate placements. However, the process of changing between placements as well as learning what our next placement will be has been handled very poorly. The changeover was incredibly messy, and some apprentices found out what they would be going into before others and vice versa. In addition, the date we would change placements was brought forward by two weeks and this important information was communicated to us by an email instead of by a call - making this seem quite unprofessional.

How much support do you receive from your employer?

4/5

The skills coaches are incredibly helpful when you request support from them, however I feel that sometimes the business can be very pull communication heavy. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I find that sometimes because the onus is placed upon yourself to seek assistance that you actually won't know about all the different types of support the business can offer unless sought out yourself.

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

5/5

The skills coaches are very good at helping me work toward my end point qualification and have kept us informed of everything expected of us, as well as providing practice papers and teaching all necessary content to a good standard.

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

3/5

I believe that my qualification is not always that reflective of my day to day role, but skills coaches do always try to tailor everything we learn to our placement work and bring in people from within the business to teach content in an applicable way.