It’s National Apprenticeship Week 2022 – hurrah! Over the next week, we’ll be shining a light on some of our own apprentices and finding out why earning and learning is seen as an increasingly popular way to kickstart an exciting career.

This year’s theme is Build the Future and first up we have practical learner Ollie Castignetti, who is studying Gas Engineering at at SGS College Filton, near Bristol. He works in Bromford’s service delivery team as an apprentice heating engineer.

We grabbed the 22-year-old, who lives in Bath, to ask him how he is enjoying his time here as an apprentice.

Hi Ollie, so why did you decide to complete an apprenticeship?

One of the key reasons I decided to do an apprenticeship is that I have always been a more hands on worker rather than academic and I believed a trade was, therefore, the best way to go.

What I love is that it actually gives you the best of both worlds as you learn practical skills whilst on the job and also get paid for it, but you also have the college side of it to learn more of the theory.

From my experience so far, I believe it is definitely the best route for any person trying to get into a trade or career of any sort – especially if you’re hands on like me!

What else are you enjoying about your apprenticeship with Bromford?

Whether it’s Bromford or the college, they all share the same qualities in wanting to see you succeed as well as letting you work at your own pace so that has been important to me. In both the work and college side of things, people pick up different aspects faster or slower than others but the end goal from all parties is that they want to see that you understand.

What are your hopes for the future?

Completing this apprenticeship has convinced me that this is the right career path for me so I now hope to stay on with Bromford and gain the solo confidence and experience I need to become a successful gas engineer in the future.

Thanks Ollie, best of luck moving forward!

Our new intake of graduate positions is now live and we'll soon be advertising a range of exciting apprenticeship vacancies! Check out our latest job vacancies for more information.