Dhruv Salanki is in his second year of an HNC Building Services apprenticeship at CBRE.
He is currently based at University of Westminster, where CBRE have a contract, and says his day-to-day job sees him working in engineering on: “Reactive jobs – so keeping the building running, making sure that the heating’s working the way it needs to do for example, and then we get PPMs, which are to test things like alarms or a heating coil.”
Dhruv studies one day a week at London South Bank, where he studies electrical and mechanical engineering, and hopes to extend his apprenticeship to a degree apprenticeship.
He became aware of CBRE while studying the Digital Futures Programme at UTC (CBRE are a UTC Heathrow employer partner), and quickly applied when he learned about apprenticeship opportunities there.
Going to UTC Heathrow gave Dhruv a big advantage when interviewing for his apprenticeship, he thinks. “Apprenticeships are more competitive than university so its good to already have the engineering theory and background if that’s what you want to do, and you get that focused learning at UTC. I would recommend it for those who do want to do an apprenticeship. It 100% helped me get my apprenticeship – I knew my stuff with my engineering background and the interviewers liked that.”
Best thing about being an apprentice is? “The people, there’s always someone willing to help and you learn something different from all the engineers – if there’s something new they’ll tag and show me.”
