What I Wish I Knew Before Starting My IT Apprenticeship

I started my IT apprenticeship at 18 with a vague idea of what “working in IT” meant and a much more specific idea of what I wanted to earn. Two years in, here’s everything I’d tell myself before I started.

Table of contents

It’s Not About the Technical Skills (At First)

The first six months are mostly about learning how to exist in a professional environment. How to write a clear email. How to ask for help without making yourself look incompetent. How to sit in a meeting and know when to speak.

Nobody teaches you this explicitly. The expectation seems to be that you absorb it by watching people who’ve been doing it for years. That works eventually, but it would have saved me some awkward situations to know this going in.

The technical skills matter — but your first employer knows you’re going to need training. They hired an apprentice, not a senior engineer. What differentiates people early on is attitude and communication.

Your Apprenticeship Provider Is Not Your Friend

The training provider attached to your apprenticeship has a financial interest in keeping you enrolled, not in your career outcomes. Their curriculum is usually generic, the resources are often outdated, and the “off-the-job” hours requirements will occasionally get in the way of doing actual useful work.

This doesn’t mean the apprenticeship is worthless — the job itself is where you learn. But don’t mistake the formal training portion for the valuable part. Do the minimum required to pass, spend the rest of your time learning from your actual colleagues and the real problems in front of you.

Get Certs on the Employer’s Budget

If your employer will pay for certifications, take every one that’s relevant to your role. CompTIA Security+, Microsoft certifications, whatever’s in your stack. Do this aggressively in your first two years.

Once you’re past the apprenticeship, cert reimbursement becomes something you have to negotiate. During the apprenticeship, it’s often assumed. Take advantage of it.

Start Documenting Things from Day One

Keep a personal log of what you’ve done, what you’ve learned, what problems you solved. Not for anyone else — for you.

Two reasons:

1. When your performance review comes around, you’ll have forgotten half of what you did. The people who get recognised are the ones who can articulate their contribution.
2. The IT industry rewards people who can explain what they know. Writing things down forces you to understand them properly.

A private Notion page or even a text file works. The medium doesn’t matter.

You Will Be Asked to Do Things Outside Your Job Description

And you should do most of them. Not because your employer deserves free labour, but because the people who get given interesting work are the ones who say yes to things and deliver. The apprenticeship is a two-year audition.

The exception: if you’re being asked to do things that are clearly not developing your skills and are just someone offloading work onto the cheap resource, that’s worth noticing. There’s a difference between “stretch task that builds capability” and “nobody else wants to do this.”

The Jump from Apprentice to Permanent is Not Automatic

Some employers hire almost all their apprentices permanently. Others use it as a cheap talent pipeline and have a much lower conversion rate. Ask about this explicitly before you accept an apprenticeship offer.

The conversation to have: “What percentage of your apprentices have been offered permanent roles in the last couple of years?” A good employer won’t be bothered by the question. A bad one will dodge it.

Start Building Your Network Early

LinkedIn, local tech meetups, internal connections at your employer. Not in a performative way — just actually talking to people in the industry. The industry is smaller than it looks, and a lot of opportunities come through people you know rather than job applications.

Follow people doing work that interests you. Comment with actual thoughts. Show up to a meetup once a quarter. It compounds over time.