The pay cut is a shame, I feel like others have said the opportunities out way the pay cut. Hoping to get some experience with fibre as it seems to be the future! And the fibre specialists earn a fair bit.

I was looking at a 6k pay drop but balanced against the perks thought it may work out but now making it a 9 k drop they can kiss my bottom if I'm taking it even if I no longer have to weekends and evenings I just don't think I can afford it!

Thats is a big drop, I'm just weighing things up myself, but don't have quite that big a pay drop. Have asked Laura what training entails before deciding.

Just remember no costs for fuel as you park your van at home. An attractive pension. Free broadband worth at least £100 a year. And also discounts on stuff like cars and also apple stuff. Cinema discounts probably most useful. And if you get asked to work in another part of the country for a couple of weeks I think you get paid an extra £500 a week but don't quote me. Lots of perks

Cycle to work regularly nearest cinema 30 odd miles away so not all perks same value to everyone. Might not be available to us new trainees until we "pass out" and get full status.

Yeah its different for everyone, even 20k is a small raise on what I'm on now, for me it's still a rise a great opportunity.
Hope everyone does what's best for themselves!

Yeah it's a bit of a bummer the pay drop for 12 months like. My basic is currently 23k and I then get a £1600pa shift allowance for working 17 Sundays across the year. I was already forefeiting the allowance but with the view I'm saving £40pw in petrol commuting at the moment so it would have balanced. Then the added 10% bonus which would actually make me better off.

The reason for the change was to spend more time at home with the newborn but will have to crunch some numbers now to see if it's viable. 12 months pain isn't much I suppose for a long term gain ......

Also selfishly the changes may sift a few people out of the way and training can hopefully start sooner for us who are still waiting for news .

Has anyone been given any concrete info about the training ? I.e. 5 weeks, 1 at yarnfield the rest local etc ?

Its I no brainer if you going to earn more and have the benefits on top but if dropping several thousand things need to be weighted up. We wait several months and get only a few dozen hours to decide something potentially live changing

In reply to a post by gouledw:

It would have been the £22,993 as that's what new recruits are on, an NE2 or TM2 grade. And then it jumps up to about £25k when the recruits are skilled to do underground faulting a bit later in their career. All with a 10% on target bonus.

I thought that once they started doing underground they get moved onto standard BT B2 grade (like most Openreach engineers are on), in which case the bonus goes and it's just the standard B2 salary?

I took a HUGE drop in salary initially (coming in as an apprentice), ask yourself if you think it's worth it to work for one of the biggest companies in the UK, and all that goes with it. Remember, Openreach isn't a company (at the moment), so you'll be an employee of BT Group and that presents you with many opportunities.

Edited by deleted (Fri 24-Feb-17 22:00:33)

Once multi skilled it's a transfer to the B2 salary that doesn't entail a 10% OTB.

The pay down may seem a lot to most but most of the apprentices who join are on a lot less and they get a NVQ out of it, from experience it is worth it in the short term for the massive career opportunities after, whether that be progressing as an experienced engineer for both copper and fibre or progressing up the ladder as a coach or management.

There is a massive internal change of the structure of new recruits and the journey will be much better than previous.