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Apprentice Development Coach
BT Openreach

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Victoria B

0:00:04 Hi, I’m Victoria B. I’m an apprentice development coach for BT Operate, and I’m from Wolverhampton. As an apprentice development coach, I look after around twelve apprentices in the Midlands area. That will involve making sure that they have gone on their training. I look after all their needs within their apprenticeship, and, personally, for my day to day role, I will be office-based. I don’t usually get out and about but I can obviously go and meet my apprentices as and when for one to ones and twelve weekly reviews.

00:00:40 As a young kid, I probably loved to go into something like interior design, but I think probably hooking into it, it was probably a bit farfetched, but maybe one day I’ll go into that sort of thing. At school I did quite well in most subjects. I think the one I shone most again in is probably art. I really did enjoy doing art, and doing painting and designing, but also I did really quite crave looking at new technologies and I quite like doing science. I did really well in my GCSEs at school. I had no problems there. My next sort of steps was to probably go to college. I signed up for the local college and I also was then made aware that there was a BT apprenticeship scheme, so I applied for both. There was no harm in doing that.

00:01:28 I got through to the interview stage at BT and I thought, well, I’ll definitely go for that and see how far and how well I do, but I’d also still got in the back of my mind, well, should I go to college? So I made a decision to actually go for the BT job in the end and I thought that would give me the best of both worlds. I’d be able to earn money, as well as still continuing with education, which is what I would have done at college.

00:01:56 My dad actually worked for BT himself, which is how I really found out about the apprenticeship scheme, but I think he didn’t influence me to go down that route if I didn’t want to; it was really that he was only the opening to show me that possibility was there. If I’m totally honest, when I did choose to leave school, I think my parents… I think they were really excited for me, but I think they would probably prefer that I had stopped in education. Now they would totally disagree with that choice and decision. They totally support me in what I’m doing. They think I’m doing extremely well. As I say, I’m still continuing my education, so in their eyes that’s fantastic and I’m shining within my job role so that has gone really well, too.

00:02:47 As part of BT, I managed to go on a trip to Africa, which was absolutely fantastic. We raised well over fifty thousand pounds, which in dollars goes a long way in Tanzania. There was a group of us that went out there – around forty apprentices, plus ten coaches, and we went out there to build schools for the local Masai community. That felt very rewarding. This was something that was going to affect the community for years and years to come. This was something that was not going to go away overnight. It was definitely a direct investment of money that we’d raised personally.

00:03:22 We went on Safari whilst we were there. Seeing Tanzania at my age was absolutely incredible to see the local community, to see the wildlife. It was absolutely stunning.

00:03:34 In the next five to ten years, or twenty years, I’d probably like to see myself in management. As any young person, I’d like to do well. I’d like to have lots of money to spend. I will have finished my degree in the future, so possibly that will open up opportunities to me and maybe start something like my art on the side, outside of work or something.

Victoria is an Apprentice Development Coach at BT, she looks after new apprentices and makes sure they are progressing well. After her GCSEs she was torn between college and the BT apprenticeship scheme. She has recently been to Africa as a volunteer building a school.

More information about Vocational and industrial trainers and instructors

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£34,840
average salary

The UK average salary is £29,813

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38
average weekly hours

There are 37.5 hours in the average working week

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46%  male 
54%  female 

The UK workforce is 47% female and 53% male

Future employment

Future employment?

Description
? Vocational and industrial trainers provide instruction in manual, manipulative and other vocational skills and advise on, plan and organise vocational instruction within industrial, commercial and other establishments.
Qualifications
No formal educational qualifications are required for entry, although most entrants have qualified in some other area of work and will require a Certificate in Training Practice. Professional qualifications are available from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. NVQs/SVQs in Training and Development are available at Levels 3, 4 and 5.
Tasks
  • Assesses training requirements and prepares lectures, demonstrations and study aids;
  • Supervises trainee development, assists trainees with difficulties and prepares regular progress reports on each trainee for management;
  • Arranges work experience and instructional visits for trainees;
  • Plans curriculum and rota of staff duties and updates or amends them in light of developments;
  • Advises on training programmes and discusses progress or problems with staff and trainees;
  • Devises general and specialised training courses in response to particular needs.
Employment by region
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Top 10 industries for this job
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Education 35338
Public admin. & defence 14492
Retail trade 12312
Food & beverage services 11643
Health 11294
Head offices, etc 8825
Employment activities 7244
Land transport, etc 7037
Security, etc 5017
Social work 4859
Employment status
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