Meet our Academy Consultants – Phoebe Rawlings

We’re proud to offer people an exciting new career path through the Ten10 Academy, taking people who have never written a line of code before and training them into the next generation of consultants across the many specialisms of IT. Today we’d like you to meet Phoebe Rawlings. Phoebe studied Creative Music Production at the University of Huddersfield before joining us and is now working in Cyber Security:

How do you feel you’ve transitioned from the Ten10 Academy to your client work?

The training was fantastic. It really set me up for success going into my client work. The day-to-day running of the training: working as part of a team and working on smaller projects was really helpful with what I do every day.

What parts of the Ten10 Academy training have been most useful in your placement?

The Ten10 training was really good for getting an overview of lots of different parts of tech so even though my current role doesn’t necessarily relate to 100% of the training that I did, a lot of the soft skills and working as part of a team, speaking in front of large groups of people, those are the skills that have really helped me with my client.

Take us through your placement, where are you currently working?

I’m currently on my first placement, working in Cyber Security for an energy company. I’m part of a team that checks company systems for monitoring data systems, dealing with vulnerabilities and reporting potential threats to ensure everything in the system remains safe. Our work ensures that everyone both internally and externally can access information without the risk of it getting into the wrong hands. It has been absolutely amazing. I’ve been there for eight months and I’m really having a fantastic time.

My working day is lots of meetings, lots of emails, running reports, working on spreadsheets. My team in particular is quite small so a lot of the time it’s just me calling my manager and having conversations about our plan for the day. On my client site we use SAFE (scaled Agile) but we also use a lot of tech like JIRA and Confluence. For my role specifically, I use probability scanners and an awful lot of Excel.

What support have you received during your placement so far?

My client has been really good at offering extra training and extra support. They’ve been really encouraging about extra stuff I can do and what I can learn to make my role easier.

The Ten10 team are amazing. They are the kindest and most supportive people in the whole world. If I ever have any issues, whether related to HR or wellbeing or even anything to do with timesheets, they are there and they are just lovely.

Have you been given any extra opportunities through your client work?

My client has been really great with getting me down to their physical offices down in Glouchester which was great for me to meet the wider Cyber Security team and the IT department. My client also took me to Infosec last year which is a massive Cyber Security event at the ExCeL in London and it was amazing being to meet different companies and vendors, and speak to people with such a wealth of experience in the sector. It was a really great day out.

What advice do you have for people considering applying to the Ten10 Academy?

I would say go for it! It’s honestly one of the best things I’ve ever done and I’ve learned so much. I’m really, really grateful for Ten10.