My case study – Adam Bacon

Q1 – Tell us a bit about your apprenticeship and why an apprenticeship appealed to you?

I graduated Lincoln University in 2018 after studying game programming. Upon leaving, I realised how hard it was to find a job within the industry. This is where I decided I wanted a career change.

Fast forward a couple of years, I was shown my apprenticeship job description. It was definitely a field I was interested in and wanted to learn more about.

After reading more about the opportunity and completing several online courses to help me gain experience and prep for the interview, I was successful in becoming Ongo’s new Security and Compliance apprentice within the Tech and Innovation team.

My day to day jobs include making sure things don’t go wrong from an IT cyber perspective, I’m here to make sure we’re all doing what we need to do.

I speak to colleagues and I’m involved with making sure all equipment and devices are up to date with the new security updates.

This apprenticeship appealed to me because I saw the benefit in working in an area I’m passionate about and jumped at the chance to be able to work with people who have great experience within the field.

Q2. How did you find out about apprenticeships?

When I was at school, apprenticeships were up and coming, there was a stigma that they were for people who didn’t want to go down the ‘normal’ route of college or university. This was my thought too, it wasn’t until a few years later I realised they could be for me.

It started when I was struggling with my mental health. With me being an Ongo tenant, I was referred to the Ongo Talk counselling service to talk to someone.

This is where I first met Dan Vockins, he helped me massively, by talking about my mental health and get to where I am today. He is also the person who introduced me to the possibility of doing an apprenticeship.

Dan called me out of the blue one day and said I should take a look at this job role as he said ‘its right up your street’. The rest is history!

Q3. What advice would you give someone considering an apprenticeship?

It’s never too late to go into something new!  You gain valuable experience from people who work within the field every single day.

Q4. If you had one sentence to describe your apprenticeship so far, what would it be?

You cannot put a price on the experience I’ve gained so far. I spent £9,500 a year to go to university and it doesn’t match what I’ve learnt here!