Remembrance Day — From The Royal Corps of Signals to Computacenter

Apprenticeships helped our learner Darrell Jones reskill into tech from a military background. This is his story.

After basic army training and a year of training for his technical job, Darrell joined his first working unit of The Royal Corps of Signals, which manage all communications for the army, including IT systems and radios.

Darrell was a member of the Royal Signals for just shy of 8 years, working on the hardware of different communications systems as a Systems Engineering Technician. Signals units are among the first to spring into action, providing essential communications to all military operations, and Darrell fully applied himself.

“I had to learn everything. Not only the communications hardware we were responsible for, but, for example, I also had to learn on the job how to repair and maintain generators in a hot and dusty environment, with little to no spares. By the end of the tour, I developed quite a good mechanical mindset.”

The work was mainly maintaining hardware, such as keeping vital communications equipment operational whilst attached to Infantry units, or dismantling and repairing generators to power that equipment.

Upon leaving the Royal Signals, Darrell joined a company that looked after defence communications through British Telecom, and then an American company that makes army communication radios.

“I was always dabbling in software, liaising with engineers. I was basically the customer, saying, ‘I want this, is this possible?’” so, when the opportunity for an Apprenticeship arose, Darrell didn’t hesitate.

“When you leave the army, they want to ensure you can settle into civilian life. You get access to a website, CTP (Career Transition Partnership) RightJob. I saw the Computacenter vacancy there, applied for it, and within a week I was offered it. I was a bit anxious because I sent my application right before the deadline, but I’m so glad I did!”

As part of his 14-month Implementation Consultant Apprenticeship (Level 4), Darrell worked for Computacenter ServiceNow Centre of Excellence, with customers such as Astra Zeneca, Morrison’s Supermarkets, and the French Industrial Gas company, Air Liquide. ServiceNow is an enterprise workflow software company.

As part of the technical consultant team, Darrell implemented and developed customers' ServiceNow platforms, which make workflow processes such as HR much more efficient, and worked with colleagues all over the world, from India and South Africa to many countries in Europe.

“You can learn theory until you’re blue in the face – theory of databases, queries, etc. – but you won’t know what you’re learning until you put it into practice. I’m not someone who learns from a book, or theory; I learn from practically doing something. This is why I would always recommend apps.

"The support I got from my line managers, Computacenter, and Firebrand has been absolutely brilliant. Even now, though I’m not under Firebrand’s wing anymore, I still got a message from my Learning Mentor to ensure everything’s OK.

"There’s a bit of an impression that apprenticeships are for younger people, but it doesn’t matter what age you are. Don’t say, ‘I’m too old’ ⁠— just go for it! As long as you’ve got the right attitude and the capability of learning, you might be pleasantly surprised. As I always say, nothing ventured, nothing gained!”

Thank you for sharing your story, Darrell!