Michael Challinor

Apprentice Support Engineer

Before joining RM I hadn’t seriously considered IT as a career, it was more of a hobby. I was employed because of my background in customer services and it didn’t matter than I didn’t have a huge amount of IT knowledge as I was willing to learn.

I work currently in a secondary school supporting around a 1000 pupils. I enjoy the problem solving and supporting the teachers. In my role we are constantly looking at ways to improve the IT within the school and I like the fact that I can improve the support and systems for the teachers. I recently introduced a system to automate allocating printer credits which saves time both for the IT team and the teachers.

Working in a school you really feel like you are a part of the community of the school. Everyone here is here for the same reason, to create the best environment for the students and you really get to contribute to this in my role.

The support from RM is great especially from my line manager who is always available. I have also spent time shadowing other engineers on the team and often get to meet with them and be involved in other projects. I recently had the opportunity to be involved in a project which involved switch upgrades in a High School which is something I hadn’t done previously. It took me out of my comfort zone but was something I really enjoyed.

I have really enjoyed the apprenticeship. Although it has been one of the hardest things I have done, the challenge has been great and it has given a great start to a career in IT.