Degree apprentice Isaac celebrates National Apprenticeship Week

Isaac Wilmore is an assistant project engineer at AMRC Cymru after having successfully studied advanced manufacturing engineering at Coleg Gwent’s Blaenau Gwent Learning Zone.

Now, he splits his time working between the AMRC Cymru facility in North Wales and the digital factory hub based at the High Value Manufacturing Catapult Baglan, South Wales. He’s working towards his degree level apprenticeship in mechanical and manufacturing engineering at University of Wales, Trinity Saint David.

What inspired you to pursue a career in engineering? 

I have always been creative and have always enjoyed problem-solving. During my GCSEs, I studied product design and discovered that it had a lot of my favourite elements. It made me realise that I wanted to pursue a career in engineering and nothing else.  

Why did an apprenticeship appeal to you?

I never saw myself wanting to go down the traditional education route and I didn’t have a strong desire to go down the typical university route. I enjoy that an apprenticeship offers something different everyday. 

What is the best part about doing an apprenticeship? 

For me, it’s good that I am not spending all of my time sitting in a classroom or fully learning on the job – I like to get a mix of the two. 

Tell us about your job role at AMRC Cymru. What are some of your highlights? 

I do a lot of site visits and shadowing other engineers.  A lot of my work is on the Cywain project, a Welsh Government–funded business support programme that helps food and drink producers across Wales grow and compete. It offers support to start-up companies and growing businesses on product development, brand building and market access – while helping these companies to explore and adopt smart manufacturing technologies that improve processes, productivity and sustainability.

I really enjoy working in the food and drink industry in Wales; it’s something that I’m interested in and feel passionate about and it’s companies like these where you feel like you can make big impacts.

At the moment, I get to do a lot of project work and in the future this is something I would like to be able to do on my own. I would like to move into a new job role, moving from assistant project engineer to project engineer. I hope to keep moving up the ladder as my career progresses.

I’ve not always been the most confident person and working at AMRC Cymru has put me in at the deep end and helped me to build up my confidence.  It’s also helped with my personal skills – I used to be quite shy and reserved, but now I feel I am able to speak up in meetings and contribute my ideas. 

What advice would you give to other people looking to do an apprenticeship?

I would just say go for it. It was definitely the right decision for me. I think if you’re not sure what to do, whether it’s to get a job or go to university, an apprenticeship might be the best option as it’s in the middle ground of the two.

From my experience, I see that apprenticeships are very open and you’re not just stuck into one particular thing, you get a real mix of different elements – which is something I enjoy more.

I would advocate for an apprenticeship and believe it’s a good thing to go for. Just throw yourself forward for every opportunity.