Openreach Employee Reviews

Good training and a great start but little long term progression from an engineering perspective. You can move into other management roles but once you’re in a role they will want to keep you in it

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Good job mangers ruin it

Service Engineer (Former Employee) - Streatham, Greater London - 15 September 2023

Good job and great training but managers come with unrealistic expectations and want you to provide a miracle in every situation but as a whole good perks good job and good team mates

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Insights into Openreach

Based on 208 survey responses

What people like

Fair pay for job

Areas for improvement

Sense of belonging
Trust in colleagues
Support from manager

mixed bag

Trainee FTTP Engineer (Current Employee) - Kent - 12 September 2023

some pros some cons. its kinda confusing departments dont communicate. you work alone. youre left to fend for yourself which can cause stress and anxiety

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No

Manager (Current Employee) - Midlands - 7 September 2023

Difficult current environment in the industry, a lot of pressure, poor pay, useless union, over the top bureaucracy, get overruled by people who have no experience whatsoever. The pension is still good, and the benefits are ok.

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Mind numbing.

Customer Service Engineer (Current Employee) - Hertfordshire - 3 September 2023

Initially a good place to work but after a few years it becomes extremely monotonous and grinding. You work along almost all of the time which make no mistake about it can be soul crushing.

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Awful place to work

Engineering Technician (Current Employee) - Manchester, Greater Manchester - 27 August 2023

Micro managed, poor pay, irrelevant qualifications. Company goes around in circles and is no longer a good place to work. Engineers are treated like school children.

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Job for life

Operations Manager (Current Employee) - Cheltenham, Gloucestershire - 18 August 2023

Great career opportunities, with lots of room for internal growth for those that are ambitious. Management recognise those that work hard. Whilst higher salaries are sometimes found elsewhere, I believe the organisation and job satisfaction far exceeds that.

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Decent

Fibre Optic Engineer (Current Employee) - Worcester, Worcestershire - 15 August 2023

4 day week. Decent pay. Can work overtime on your day off and weekends when the work is there. Park your van at home. Managers can be ok. Hard to progress

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Fun environment not too stressful

Service Desk Engineer (Current Employee) - Glasgow, KY - 12 August 2023

You are treated like am adult and left alone to do your work and most managers don't micromanage. The salary is not the greatest however as the older contracts are being let go and replaced with the current contract. The salaries for whom are much lower

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Poor management

Civil Engineer (Current Employee) - Devon - 6 August 2023

Management just what as many jobs out of you as possible no matter what, progression up to gang lead is there, but anything further than that is near impossible, cant side shift to other departments as "civils is under recourced" so your trapped once your in, unless you leave

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Jobs at Openreach

Finance Business Partner

Hard work but can be enjoyable

Hybrid telecommunications engineer (Former Employee) - Liverpool - 26 July 2023

Job role was very enjoyable, it is fast paced and can be tiring. The management are awful as they don't know much about what the engineers do on a daily basis and theyre constantly on your back about stats.

Pros

good working hours, working from a van so always in a different place

Cons

management

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A big let down and seeing what people are really like

Network Field Engineer (Former Employee) - Lincolnshire - 20 July 2023

What is the best part of working at the company?The disability campaign and policies are just a smoke and mirror tactic. It's still has toxic masculinity and Toxic femininity In the management. You face has to fit. 75% of manger don't know and don't care about mental health. Company has some good people in it but 75% of the management are out for them self's. But the company has it right at heart. If you are disabled you are a problem.What is the most stressful part about working at the company?Toxic masculinity and femininity in the upper management in 2023What is the work environment and culture like at the company?Low morale. Redundancy at ground level, when they should be at management.What is a typical day like for you at the company?Your always worried about the next stat that's going to be created. By people who where engineers for 5 minutes

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Decent

Copper engineer (Current Employee) - Wellingborough, Northamptonshire - 17 July 2023

Pretty good company to work for relatively speaking. It does depend quite a bit on your manager. The company has become very cheapskate of late and it has become very hard to get the correct resources for the jobs. Also management is more interested in you closing jobs on the day than fixing the small percentage of jobs which require more complex fixes

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A good place to work if you fit around the work locations.

Customer Experience Manager (Current Employee) - London, Greater London - 16 July 2023

A good company to work for if you fit around the new smart working locations. Unfortunately lost a lot of talent due to redundancies and they don't appear to be stopping anytime soon.

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Fantastic

Jointers Mate (Current Employee) - Guildford, Surrey - 14 July 2023

Fantastic . Can’t say a bad word offered extremely good opportunities and a brilliant pension scheme. Good workplace and colleagues were helpful and always on hand to assist.

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Avoid avoid avoid

Apprentice Fibre jointer (Former Employee) - South East London, Greater London - 13 July 2023

When I first got this job I had high hopes it would see me through to retirement. Within 10 months I decided to leave.I was taken on as a Fibre jointer, however in the 10 months I ve had less than 3 weeks experience of this! And that includes training. Whereas I see others get lots of opportunities to learn there skill.This company makes lots of promises when you join but fails to deliver on almost all.

Pros

Van, fuel

Cons

Untrustworthy work colleagues

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Clique culture

Network Planner (Former Employee) - Belfast, County Antrim - 10 July 2023

Poor management, have to be in with the managers to get anywhere. Toxic working environment, only thing that was half decent was the money. Avoid like the plague

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Fun and rewarding workplace

Field Engineer (Former Employee) - Merseyside - 10 July 2023

Spent 18 months here, loved every minute, left for a job with more pay, bad decision. Physical work but the people around you including management support you and give you training to advance. I'd go back in a heartbeat.

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Go above and beyond to cover yourself and you'll have no issues

Civil Engineer (Current Employee) - Birmingham - 9 July 2023

On the civil engineering side of openreach, you have as much opportunity as you’re willing to put yourself forward for. If you prove yourself to be competent you really do have the opportunity to learn plenty of new skills and earn a very decent wage. Senior management are a bit clueless because of their lack of experience but you rarely have to interact with them and the ground level supervision is fantastic in most cases. You’ll get out what you put in if your willing to work hard you’ll never have any problems with openreach.

Pros

Employee benefits, good wage

Cons

Senior management are clueless which leads to unnecessary disruption in the field

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Meat for the Grinder

Advanced Engineer (Former Employee) - Aberdeen, Aberdeen City - 6 July 2023

Welcome to Openreach, where all you are is meat for the grinder. You're fed a pack of lies when you join that there's so much opportunity and you're part of something brilliant.. when in reality you are kidding yourself if you expect to get any meaningful progression, on average, due to the volume of people within the business there are simply not enough upwards moving opportunities. Even worse if you aren't near one of the "centres of excellence" or whatever wanky term they've decided to call the offices they've generously decided to leave open.Make no mistake and don't fool yourself, this isn't a career, it's Tesco with telephone poles. Get in, make some money and invest in reskilling for an industry that will actually give you a rewarding career.All management care about is driving stats, local managers your mileage may vary. Mine was alright. Area managers.. again mileage may vary but on average I would say they are masters of the theatre of pretending to care. Typical big company token gesturism about mental health and diversity on full song.Regarding pay etc, strikes taught them nothing and will probably be having to strike again in the next 2-3 years I reckon. The divide between boardroom and engine room couldn't be further.Overall, get in and get out. Not worth putting roots down, 5 years is the sweet spot before you're beginning to waste your life here, at least if you've got potential and aspirations. Most of the staff are great, but some are backstabbing, usually that's reserved for managers and managers-elect though.

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Good pay, terrible leadership and organisation

Planning and allocation (Former Employee) - Cardiff, Cardiff - 6 July 2023

Openreach provide good pay and benefits but the in office experience is entirely unprofessional and disorganised. Politics and nepotism rule the day and managers there have disregard for proper HR policy and wellbeing

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