Intern Review

I enjoyed my placement a lot, and gained a lot of important skills and knowledge. Centrica house all the interns together in University accommodation, which is very fun, and is a relaxed enjoyable atmosphere. The work can be tough, but is on the whole enjoyable and the scheme lets you meet people across the business.

To begin it felt difficult to be a valuable member of the team, given I had almost no experience in the energy sector or the working world in general. However, soon you are given tasks which you really do feel are contributing to the success of the overall team and company.

Support is on hand if you need it almost all the time, there is a wealth of experience around you to draw on. However, if you are getting stuck into an independent project you do have a lot of freedom to attack a problem in whichever way you think suits best.

I was given a number of projects to complete over the course of the placement, the scheduling of how you worked on these was left up to you, so there is a lot of flexibility on how busy you were each day. On the whole there was never a moment when you did not have work to be doing.

I was given ownership of several of my own projects, which I was then able to present to senior figures in the business. It felt good to be trusted to complete your own work, although you were not given a lot of work which was critical to the success of the business.

Getting used to working in a formal office environment was invaluable. I used many of the skills I had developed over the course of my degree, and also learnt a lot of new skills, such as working with business IT systems such as excel, and presenting to audiences in a persuasive manner.

The office atmosphere is relaxed and hard working. There are lots of perks, such as free tea and coffee and fruit, and the standard of the catering facilities is very high. There are casual Fridays, which is a highlight of the week, and the teams are very sociable with cakes often being brought in etc.

The work placement was very well organised overall, we were supported very well, and we were told where and when we needed to be at all times. The intern specific training days and team work sessions were particularly well organised, with activities, coaches and catering all organised for us throughout the days.

The company ran a number of training workshops, and team work days. These were all very useful, and usually run through in house talent, such as the graduate teams that we were working with. There was not too much job specific training, and for day to day work, there was an expectation of self sufficiency.

The future employment at centrica is an interesting prospect. The placement was very enjoyable and interesting, however, the pay is fairly noncompetitive, and there is not much optimism in the business from those who work there. This is probably fair enough, given there struggling performance, and especially a share price which has hit a record low.

There was a very good social scene with the fellow placements. We all lived together in university accommodations, which gave a great family atmosphere to the placement. We were also all mixed up in the accommodation which gave a great chance to meet interns outside of your stream, and learn about the wider business.

Centrica pays for accommodation, which is a great boon, as living rent free quite close to London is definitely worth a lot. There were also several local pubs which were very good value. The only downside was the necessary use of public transport, especially if you did not have access to a car.

We were staying on a university campus which was set up to accommodate students of our age. This meant that within the campus there were many activities and options to enjoy the nightlife. However, the nearest town to the campus had quite limited nightlife (none at all) which meant that we often had to venture further afield.

There were a few opportunities to get involved with activities outside of work. Particularly we were tasked with raising money for charity in teams that would compete against each other to raise the most money, this did however take up quite a lot of time where there was pressure to be working.