My apprenticeship got me here – Stan

I'd love to say that an apprenticeship is what I envisaged after school but it simply isn't true. I had always wanted to go the university route. I assumed this was the only viable option to enable a career in a high-skill industry and apprenticeships.

My journey started when my parents first strongly 'suggested' that I seriously consider an apprenticeship. With university offers already secured, I had nothing to lose and applied for the 2011 apprenticeship intake to Rolls-Royce.

After I got the news that I had both passed the assessment day and got the A-level results I wanted, I had a hard decision to make between uni and the apprenticeship. Looking back, it's quite scary to consider just how much of an inflection point in my life that was.

As someone who naturally gravitated towards maths and science in my younger years, I took to the academic side of the apprenticeship quite well. However, the practical side I found challenging. In my cohort there were plenty of others in the same situation, but also others were the opposite and everything in-between.

I came out of my apprenticeship into a capability acquisition role in submarines and that's where I picked up my love for EB welding. While I had a few role changes in the first few years I eventually settled into welding engineering circa 2016, became subject matter expert circa 2018, and attained my technical specialist position for EB welding in 2022 at the age of 29. To put it bluntly - I had no idea I'd end up where I am today.