IT First Line Support Apprentice

QA; Runcorn; Hybrid; GBP 18,000 - 24,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Funded training & certification

Laptop & remote setup

Free on-site parking

Perkbox + private healthcare & pension

Job summary

QA invites applicants to join its apprentice programme as a First-Line Service Desk Apprentice. You will be the first point of contact for customers, diagnose and resolve simple issues, and own incidents from start to finish while learning best practices in service management.

Working hours are 37.5 per week. You will receive funded training and certification, a modern laptop for remote work, and the support of a social, office environment plus access to Perkbox, private healthcare and a pension

Qualifications

• 3 GCSEs (4+) in any subject.
• GCSE Maths and English (3+) or equivalents.
• No existing equivalent/higher qualification in the same subject.

Responsibilities

• Be the first capable, human response for customers.
• Own the incident and see it through to resolution.
• Act on monitoring and backup platforms to pre-empt issues.
• Meet service level commitments and SLA spirit.

Skills

People skills under pressure

Desire to learn and grow

Clear plain communication

ITIL familiarity

Structured service environment

Windows and Microsoft 365 basics

Education

3 GCSEs (4+)

GCSE Maths & English (3+)

No higher similar qualification

Job description

Most IT companies run a helpdesk. We run the front door of a promise.

Nviron is not building an impressive IT company. We are building an invisible one — the kind of technology a business stops having to think about. The service desk is where that starts. If that is the kind of work you want to be good at, we would like to hear from you.

When a business hands its technology to Nviron, it is not buying tickets or hours. It is handing over something it would otherwise have to worry about, and trusting us to worry about it instead. The first-line Service Desk Engineer is the person that trust meets first. When something breaks, when a question needs answering, when a morning starts badly, you are the reason the customer gets to keep thinking about their own business rather than about ours.

That is a bigger job than the words “first-line support” suggest, and we mean it to be.

What the role actually is:

When a customer contacts us, you are the person they deal with, and the experience is yours to get right. Whether they come away reassured or unsettled is largely down to you, and we treat that as one of the most important things happening in the building.

Day to day, that means:

• Being the first capable, human response. Answering, diagnosing, and fixing what can be fixed, first time.

• Owning the incident in front of you. Not passing a customer around, not letting a ticket go quiet — seeing it through, or handing it on cleanly when it genuinely needs a specialist.

• Acting on what the monitoring and backup platforms are telling us. Often before the customer has felt anything at all. The best support is the kind nobody had to ask for.

• Keeping the promises our service levels represent. An SLA is not a target to be gamed. It is a commitment to a business relying on us, and we hold you to the spirit of it, not just the clock.

What we look for:

We hire for character first, and we are not being polite when we say it.

The Nviron Standard commits us to honesty with customers — including the honest answer they did not want, delivered warmly but without softening. That commitment starts on the service desk. We want someone who is genuinely good with people under pressure, who would rather say “I don’t know yet, but I’ll find out” than bluff, and who takes it personally when a customer is let down.

On top of that:

• A real desire to learn and to grow. First line at Nviron is an entry point, not a holding pen. The progression into second line, engineering and specialism is real, funded, and expected.

• A sound grasp of the fundamentals. Windows, desktops, servers, networks, and Microsoft 365. You do not need to know everything; you need to understand how things fit together and how to find out the rest.

• Clear, plain communication, written and spoken. We translate technology into language the customer can act on. Jargon is a tell, and we work hard to avoid it.

• Comfort in a structured service environment. Familiarity with ITIL or similar service-management practice is useful, but it is not the badge that gets you the job. We run to our own service standard, and we will teach it.

The entry requirements for this programme are as follows:

• 3 GCSEs (or equivalent) at grades 4+ (A-C) in any subject

• GCSE Maths and English (or equivalents) at grades 3+ (D or above)

• Prospective apprentices must not hold an existing qualification at the same or higher level as this apprenticeship in a similar subject

Working hours: 37.5 hours per week

Benefits:

We invest properly in the people who do this work, because the whole proposition depends on them.

• A competitive, experience-based salary.

• Funded training and certification. We pay for you to get better at this, and we expect you to.

• A modern, lightweight laptop and the setup to work remotely.

• Free on-site parking, and a real office and social environment rather than a described one.

• Access to Perkbox, and, on completion of probation, private healthcare and a pension.

Future prospects:

90% of QA apprentices secure permanent employment after completing: this is 20% higher than the national average.

About QA:

Our apprenticeships are the perfect way to gain new skills, earn while you learn, and launch yourself into an exciting future. With over 50,000 successful apprenticeship graduates, we're a top 50 training provider, dedicated to helping you succeed.