The Virtual Innovation Centre, located at Jaguar Land Rover's Gaydon engineering site, is a world class virtual reality facility, dedicated to providing all business functions access to state-of-the-art technology, and allowing the efficient delivery of virtual experiences to aid in product creation.As a Virtual Reality Engineer, it is my role to be the facilitator for ensuring this technology is used to its up-most capability by the business; supporting virtual and augmented reality activities and delivering successful sessions for users - allowing our product creation teams to make more robust decisions sooner and more effectively in the development process of our future vehicles, all whilst lifting a dependency on physical models.Throughout my time in this department I have become a specialist and practitioner in technologies such as Virtual Reality CAVEs and Powerwall collaborative spaces, and immersive software such as IC.IDO from ESI Group and Deltagen from Dassault Systèmes, all the whilst managing processes and methods to ensure the continued quality of experience our customers require.As the forefront of Virtual Reality within Jaguar Land Rover, I have engaged with stakeholders from all levels of the business, utilising my passion for technology and willingness to collaborate to cement myself as an invaluable member of the department, and have been privileged to meet many VIPs and media teams, promoting the work done in this department as the future of automotive engineering.

As an apprentice for Jaguar Land Rover, I was situated in the Current Manufacturing Engineering department at the Solihull production site, where undertaking various quality improvement projects was an essential part of my role; working on critical production concerns for the business, using advanced Six-Sigma problem solving techniques and technical skills, liaising with other engineers and departments, or working on large projects with my own initiative.The Final Assembly 1 building is the primary assembly hall for Land Rover Discovery, Range Rover, and Range Rover Sport. My principle role involved fault finding and investigating quality issues on the vehicles built, implementing engineering solutions in a timely, cost-effective and safe manner, ensuring the world-class level of quality the customer expects.As I developed throughout my apprenticeship, I became an instrumental part of the department, with my main achievement being that of implementing a collaborative quality feedback system for all vehicles that entered rectification off the production line. This system allowed highly detailed issues to be tracked and allocated to the relevant teams, lifting a dependency on paper documents. The system has been incredibly successful, with variants now used at other manufacturing sites.Whilst working across multiple engineering functions within a fast paced and reactive environment, I also supported Corporate Social Responsibility events as an ambassador for Jaguar Land Rover, promoting the apprenticeship and company to young individuals.I have gathered invaluable manufacturing experience through my time in this department, whilst a vast array of qualifications have been achieved through the academic side of the apprenticeship. Together, they have given me an impressive portfolio of skills and expertise, and by adapting and expanding this knowledge, I have the key competencies to overcome any challenge in my future career.