February 13, 2023

National Apprentice Week 2023

To celebrate #nationalapprenticeshipweek we’d like to turn the spotlight onto our very own Max Waddup!

“An apprenticeship is a great way of learning, while demonstrating classroom activities in the real working environment and learning valuable industry skills. That’s why I decided to embark on this journey of becoming a Civil Engineer. Whilst being at AKSWard I have learnt a lot of from my colleagues who have shown me many vital skills such as drafting on Auto-Cad. A typical day in the life of Max as a Civil Engineering Apprentice looks like; get into the office around 8:30am to then be greeted by my friendly fellow colleagues, then sit down at my desk with a hot cup of coffee whilst talking about what I got up to at college the day before, then swivel around and log in to excitedly see what the day will bring me. This can range from amending various drawings from colleagues throughout the company, creating preliminary drainage designs with guidance, creating external finished drawings, calculating gradients and levels ready for checking, gathering drawings and creating a pack to then send of to the clients. I am eager to expand my knowledge further and refine my skills to be a fully qualified Civil Engineer. This apprenticeship has shown the career path I want to take, it’s nice to see what I will become in a few years!” – Max Waddup, Civil Engineering Apprentice at AKSWard.

Overseeing Max and our Oxford office is one of our Operations Directors – Paul Morgan.
“AKSWard as a company has always looked to develop and nurture our younger members of staff allowing them to become the best they can. We have a large number of staff who started with us at junior levels and have risen through the ranks. We understand that not everyone wants to head off to University and know that there is more than one route for those looking for a career within our industry. We knew that apprenticeships are a great route for us. We teamed up with New College Swindon to recruit an apprentice via their Civil Engineering Technician Level 3 course to join our civils group. Good civils engineers can be hard to come by, so we are training our own by taking on an individual who does not yet have any bad habits! We made the decision at the outset to focus on finding the right candidate for our team. We were hoping to find someone keen to learn and develop, someone with that “something about them” which makes it easy to get them involved. That is what we saw in Max when we first interviewed him and I’m glad to say we have not been disappointed. Max has started his life with us at AKSWard brilliantly. He has fitted straight in and instantly become a good fit in our team. He is asking all the right questions and is a fast learner, what more could we ask? So far our apprenticeship journey is proving a success and as a business we are keen to bring in more like minded individuals through apprenticeships across our offices and across our different disciplines”.