Hello, I’m Emily I am 18 years old, and I have just joined West Mercia Energy as their first ever apprentice.

I will be writing this blog to bring you along on my journey as I start my career, giving you an insight as to what it is like to be an apprentice within a busy energy organisation.

After finishing my A-levels in June, I was unsure if I wanted to carry on my education, go on a gap year, or start work straight away. After much research I decided I wanted to do an apprenticeship. I spent lots of time researching different career paths and looking on the government apprenticeship website and finally found this apprenticeship at West Mercia Energy as a Business Administrator.

I had very limited previous work experience, so I believe doing an apprenticeship as an introduction to working life will be very beneficial for me. The scheme allows me to work and learn together, advancing my knowledge, skills and experience over the next two years.

I started my apprenticeship at the start of September and have found my first month really interesting. I have learnt a vast amount about energy and about WME as an organisation, but also lots of different things I didn’t expect to learn, including many new practical skills that are best learnt “on the job”.

I have already been given lots of opportunities to learn about different parts of the business. For example, I currently work mainly in the customer services area, however, I have sat in on external customer meetings and I have had overviews on different sections in the business from colleagues. I feel this is an advantage of the apprenticeship scheme as I am learning about all parts of the business, which will help me to both identify my strengths, and develop my weaknesses which will help me in the future.

Thank you for reading my first blog post - Look out for my next update soon!