“I couldn’t be happier I took the risk”: Scott’s journey into telecoms

When Scott Flynn finished school in Ireland, he wasn’t sure where his career would take him. Now, at just 20 years old, he’s qualified as a Radio Network Technician and preparing for his next chapter as a Maintenance Engineer at Shared Access. And it all started with the possibility of working at a football stadium.

When Scott Flynn heard about an opportunity with Shared Access, it was the prospect of working at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium that first caught his attention.

His father was an electrician at the stadium, where Shared Access was involved in providing mobile connectivity, and had heard about the company’s apprenticeship opportunities.

For Scott, a keen football fan, it sounded worth exploring.

“Little did I know I’d actually be coming over to the UK,” he laughs.

Having completed his Leaving Certificate, the Irish equivalent of A-levels, Scott had taken a year out of education to work in retail. He’d studied computer science at school but had little practical technical experience and hadn’t really considered a career in telecommunications.

“I didn’t really know what I wanted to do,” he admits. “For me, it was about taking a risk. I thought I might as well go all in.”

It turned out to be a pretty good decision.

Straight in at the deep end

Scott joined Shared Access as part of its first intake of apprentices. And if he’d expected a gentle introduction to the world of telecoms, he was in for a surprise.

Just two days after starting, he was on a flight back to Ireland, this time to Cork, where he joined experienced engineers working on a connectivity installation.

“It was quite daunting to begin with,” he recalls. “I was straight on site, but it was just about taking it in my stride. I was new, so I knew they weren’t going to expect me to know everything. I just asked as many questions as I possibly could.”

Working alongside engineers from the beginning gave Scott an early understanding of what goes into delivering mobile connectivity, from the initial installation to ongoing maintenance and future expansion.

He also discovered that the job was considerably more complicated than he’d imagined.

“It’s easy to think that providing mobile connectivity is simply a case of installing equipment to get a signal into a building. But there’s so much more to it than that, and most people have no idea just how much work goes on behind the scenes.”

That complexity has become one of the things he enjoys most.

“Every day is a school day, really. There’s always going to be something new to learn and that’s exactly what I wanted. I’ve always wanted a job where I can travel and learn something new every day. And I’ve got both, which is brilliant.”

Learning by doing

Scott’s apprenticeship combines practical experience at Shared Access with studying towards a Level 3 Radio Network Technician qualification through West Thames College. The programme takes approximately two and a half years, including preparation for the final assessment.

It’s the hands-on experience that Scott believes has made the biggest difference to his development.

“I learn by doing,” he explains. “I’m not someone who can sit down and study for hours on end. I need to get stuck in and learn as I go. Without that hands-on experience, I think I’d struggle.”

One of his biggest challenges was learning to use the specialist walk-testing equipment used to measure and assess mobile network performance within buildings.

“The whole setup was absolutely mind-blowing to me at first. I really didn’t understand anything I was looking at.”

Today, it’s a different story.

“Now I can comfortably set it up myself and know what I’m looking for specifically. It feels really good when you get a couple of months down the road and realise you can actually do this by yourself.”

For Scott, that growing confidence has been helped by the people around him.

“The guys here made it very clear that if I don’t know something, just say it instantly. There’s not a bad question to ask.”

That approach has meant he has never felt pressured to take on work before he’s ready.

“If I didn’t feel comfortable, there’s no issue with getting other people involved and showing me again until I do feel comfortable with the process.”

“I felt like part of the team since day one.”

Football stadiums and making a difference

One of the attractions of Scott’s job is the variety of places he gets to work.

As a football fan, visiting Tottenham Hotspur Stadium has been a particular highlight. Seeing the architecture and engineering behind such a modern venue, especially compared with older stadiums such as Crystal Palace’s Selhurst Park, made a lasting impression.

But it’s not only the buildings themselves that interest him.

Another memorable experience was seeing the impact of Shared Access’ work with GiveVision, whose technology helps partially sighted spectators experience live sport in a completely different way.

Shared Access provides the private 5G connectivity that enables GiveVision’s headsets to deliver live, enhanced images of the action to spectators, helping them follow the game from their seats.

At Edgbaston Cricket Ground, Scott saw the reaction of someone using the technology for the first time.

“They were absolutely blown away by it,” he recalls.

For someone whose day-to-day work involves highly technical systems, it was a reminder of the people who ultimately benefit from that work.

“To hear that feedback encourages you to keep going at it, because you really do make a difference to people.”

Finding the right fit

A key part of Shared Access’s apprenticeship programme is giving recruits experience across different teams before they specialise.

Scott spent time in design, build, maintenance and test and measurement, giving him an understanding of how the different disciplines work together.

And his preferences changed along the way.

“Originally, I wanted to go into maintenance, but about a year into the apprenticeship I was dead set on joining the build team. Then I started doing more maintenance work and realised how much I enjoyed it. So I’ve ended up back where I started!”

He believes the opportunity to try different roles is particularly valuable for someone starting out.

“If I hadn’t tried working in build, I’d never have known whether it was for me. Getting to spend time in different teams has been really useful. It’s helped me work out what I enjoy, what I’m good at and where I want to go in the future.”

It’s led him to his next step: a role as a Maintenance Engineer with Shared Access’s in-building connectivity team.

And with his apprenticeship exams now successfully completed, Scott has a qualification and a career path he couldn’t have imagined when he first left school.

“It’s unbelievable, to be honest. To be fully qualified at 20, I just couldn’t imagine it.”

What comes next?

For Scott, there’s still plenty to learn. Telecommunications is changing quickly, and the technology he’ll be working with in ten years could be very different from today’s.

Rather than setting himself a rigid career plan, he’s happy to see where the opportunities take him.

“I don’t really want to set concrete plans because they could just become irrelevant. It’s best to take it in my stride and see what happens in the future.”

And what would he say to someone considering an apprenticeship but uncertain about which direction to take?

His advice is simple: give it a go.

After all, taking that chance has taken Scott from a retail job in Ireland to working at some of the UK’s most interesting venues, gaining a technical qualification and building a career in an industry he’d never previously considered.

“I honestly couldn’t be happier that I took the risk.”

Scott is one of four apprentices in Shared Access’s first cohort, with opportunities for successful apprentices to progress into the company’s in-building connectivity teams, including design, build, maintenance and the Network Operations Centre (NOC), which monitors network performance.

With a second cohort now underway, Shared Access is continuing to develop the next generation of technical talent. Over the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing more stories from the first intake, exploring the different routes they’ve taken into telecommunications and what they’ve learned along the way.