Engineering Success for Sarah

Sarah Kelly never dreamt that she would end up working as a technician in Roke's Engineering Services division, let alone successfully pass her engineering assessments a year early.

When Sarah, 24, joined Roke as an apprentice technician in 2005 it represented a complete career change for her. Despite enjoying science at school, Sarah had never considered it as a career and held various administrative roles before deciding on her new vocation.

Sarah applied for an advanced modern apprenticeship with the Southampton Engineering Training Association (SETA) who put her forward for the role at Roke. She was the eldest apprentice at SETA at the time and the only female on the associated two-year course, which included Health & Safety and Information & Communications Technology, as well as NVQs Level 2 and 3 in Performing Engineering Operations and a National BTEC Certificate in Electrical/Electronic Engineering.

Sarah passed all modules of the apprenticeship a year early, thanks to the opportunities Roke was able to provide and the support from the Manufacturing Design Group team. Sarah now works on a range of projects - including populating and modifying PCBs - and is about to embark on a two year Higher National Certificate in electronic engineering at Solent University.