Starting out

I was pretty indifferent about going to university. I had two offers, but in the end I thought that I would rather start working straight away. Hargreaves Lansdown came into my school and I thought that it would be really valuable to go into a FTSE100 company where there was room for career progression.

I finished the apprenticeship scheme maybe a month ago. For the job that I am doing now, I would have need to have finished university and then completed a couple of years in agency to be considered - so I’m quite lucky that I have been able to cut out those 2 years and move straight into the role.

From day one in my apprenticeship, I had the level of responsibility that allowed me to make big changes to aspects such as the website – which is really nice, especially for an 18 year old who, a few months before was sat in a class room doing their A Level exams.

There is sometimes the misconception within an apprenticeship that you just spend your time making tea – I haven’t actually made a single cup of tea since starting!

Other than the direct people around me, no one else really knew that I was an apprentice, which meant that I was treated the same as everyone else. The senior members of my team were quite quick to recognise where my individual skills set and abilities lay. This meant that towards the end of my apprenticeship I was certainly doing what I was best at, what I was enjoying and what I was interested in.

I am now working as a Trainee Front End Web Developer. As a team, we basically build and control the website, the marketing team then transfer their content into what we have built.

When I left school I didn’t even know what this role was. During my apprenticeship I was working with this team frequently, so I gained knowledge of what they did, the influence they had on my work and the impact that my work had on theirs. Working within the digital team I have had so much contact with other areas within the business.

Right from the beginning, I became aware that this was a real job and once I finished my apprenticeship I had gained a real understanding of how HL works.

I joined HL in October 2016 on an IT apprenticeship program working on the IT Service Desk. After successfully completing the apprenticeship program, I’ve been given lots of opportunities to progress into other areas of IT. I’ve gained a huge amount of experience and knowledge of our IT systems which helped me in securing my new role in the Security Operations Centre.

In my current role as a Cyber Security Analyst, I have been given an opportunity to progress into specific areas such as log management, incident response, vulnerability management, cyber threat intelligence and campaign analysis. My current role will be synergistic in helping me to achieve a BSc (Hons) in Digital and Technology Solutions qualification.

I have been hugely impressed by the community feel at HL; from one rotation to the next, the links you build up with senior members of the business and the relationships created with colleagues never fades.

Since joining HL, I’ve become a much more confident and clear-minded person. There’s a whole host of social activities including charity events, work groups and team/department meetups. Everyone has always been very friendly and approachable which makes it a great place to come and work every day.

A lot of my friends went to university, I was the only one that did an apprenticeship. My brother had done one and my family knew how well he got on and I liked the idea of going straight into a career. Most of my friends didn’t know what they wanted to do afterwards, whereas, I knew what I wanted to do so I thought I might as well go straight into it.

By the time my friends finish university I will have had a couple of year’s specific training with valuable knowledge within the business, plus earning at the same time.

During my apprenticeship, it has been really helpful to have a mentor. My mentor has introduced me to different teams and people around the business, especially other apprentices who are in the same boat as me - that has been really nice.

My role within the business changed slightly when starting, as the language used in my learning course was JAVA and it suited me to switch over to this. I didn’t move teams but changed to a role within Front Office using Java, which was quite positive as the language is very modern and is pretty popular.

Within the team, I have been given more projects, it’s quite nice to be given that responsibility and to have people always there to ask and talk through things when needed. I am also encouraged to learn independently – this has got more and more over time.