National Apprenticeship Week: Interview with an Electrical Apprentice

I chose an electrical apprenticeship as I wanted to learn a trade whilst still being able to work. This has worked really well for me; I’ve been able to get real life experiences on-site and learn the trade in the classroom.

My favourite part about my apprenticeship so far is working with the engineers, who are very experienced and knowledgeable electricians. This has meant that they have been able to teach me everything they know and teach me the tips and tricks of the trade.

A typical day for me looks like:

6:30am: Wake up, get ready and head to work ready for a 7:30am start

07:30am: Once I’ve arrived at work, I load the van with materials needed for the day and meet the engineer I’m working with.  Then we will head to site and talk about the job and how we’re going to go about the job.

Once we’ve arrived at site, we will make sure we’ve signed in and followed any procedures set out by the workplace. Once we’ve followed all health and safety procedures we crack on with the job.

We will the work until around 12:30pm where we will have a well-deserved break and lunch.  This is when the engineers will use their time to talk to me about difference techniques and skills required for the job at hand tell me past stories of how things were “back in the day”.

After our well needed lunch break, we will get back to work and generally finish around 4pm, depending on the job.

4pm: we make sure we sign out of the site and head back to the office where we will offload the van and dispose of any waste from the job. Then we will see our project manager for the job for that day and discuss how it went and what we will be doing on the following day.

Once this is all sorted and wrapped up, I then head home for a good night’s sleep before coming back to work the following day.

A typical day at college for me looks like this:

6am: wake up and get ready to be at college for 8am, I am currently studying in Loughborough, so the journey is around an hour.

8am: I meet with my friends that I’ve met on the course and we all have a good catch up about how our jobs are going.  As we’re on block release we do three weeks of college and then have a couple of months before we’re back and see each other again, so there’s a lot to catch up on.  We then make our way to the workshop or classroom depending on what we’ll be going that day.

My favourite day Tuesday because that when we do the practical work in the workshop all day which is good fun.

Then we have an hour for lunch and then we will carry on working until 16:00

After 16:00 I will leave Loughborough and head home where I will get back for 18:00.

I complete a series of tasks and they are different day to day. The beauty with the business I work at is that no day is ever the same. Some days I could be pulling in cable, splicing fibre, terminating CAT6 or working in the training room to better my skills.

My favourite part about working at Remark Group is the variation in the work we do. It’s a brilliant company to work for, everyone is really easy to get along with, and everyone will take the time to explain things to me.

The best advice I’ve been given is to ask questions - lots of them!

Read into it or do some work experience in the trade first, as it will give you an insight into what you’ll be doing and what you will be learning.

Our Project Manager, Iain, has a few words about William:

"William has enthusiasm and showed a notable passion for the subject matter as well as the overall further education area. He shows a high level of diligence in terms of the information taken from course material and Remark are looking to enhance this with regular 1-2-1 meetings and buddy mentor sessions.

William is very confident in speaking, he is articulate and I am confident that he will continue to develop his communication skills. He is a good team member who is able to complete required tasks under supervision."