From coordination to confidence: what helps an FM apprenticeship succeed

Former facilities management apprentice Keighley Luff, who trained while working at Chelsea Football Club, reflects on her apprenticeship journey, and shares top tips on what employers and future apprentices can do to set themselves up for success

Her positive experience highlights the role employers play in creating the conditions for apprentices to succeed in demanding FM environments.

Keighley explained: “I always wanted progression. Weren’t really sure how to get it. And I think without sort of a qualification behind me, it was quite difficult to show the experience that would allow me to do more, and the apprenticeship tied to that team together, it was quite helpful.”

In the UK, an apprentice first needs to be employed before starting their training. When Keighley began her apprenticeship training with Capital City College (CCC), she was already working in facilities management, but in a busy team, it was easy to feel overwhelmed by the amount of work.

As FM Coordinator for the club, Keighley coordinated works across trades, managed maintenance schedules, audited compliance and maintained asset registers. For early‑career professionals and career changers alike, limited experience can affect their confidence, which makes having a structure and support in place so important to the apprentice’s success.

For those thinking about pursuing an apprenticeship, Keighley shares the following tips.

Tip #1: Don’t be afraid to block out time for your apprenticeship

Balancing work and apprenticeship study can be difficult, as time management is a skill. But setting aside time to study and protect that time, can make all the difference.

Keighley said: “I would say to people who start doing apprenticeships to not be afraid to say no, and focus your time.

“When I was doing my study, if I didn’t get organised and manage my time carefully, people wouldn’t understand or fully appreciate what I was trying to do. And then it was easy to fall behind if you lose momentum.

“But I found that it was okay to set a day out and make that dedicated day ‘my day’, and to politely turn down meeting requests and calls to study and manage the requirements of the apprenticeship. Eventually it got a lot easier, and people started to respect it a lot more, also, because they knew that there was no flexibility in that.

“They understood that this is what I’m doing, and this is my time. They stopped trying to put meetings into that certain day. They stopped trying to call me around midday asking questions. They allowed that space. And I’m grateful for that.”

Tip #2: The ‘we’ in team is important, but so is the ‘I’

In any career, success is often framed as a team outcome, and colleagues are encouraged to promote their achievements as those of the team. While collaboration is important, apprentices also need to not be afraid to share their individual contributions to team projects, in order to demonstrate their capability and build their confidence.

For apprentices learning on the job, sometimes a little more ‘I’ is needed.

Keighley explained how in her course, she learnt to take more accountability for her role’s responsibilities and be more vocal about how she helped the team.

“In my course, we broke down the areas of accountability, ownership and responsibility in different areas, where Rod, my tutor, would challenge me and ask: what did you do to achieve that?

“It was things like ‘I set up a meeting with this external stakeholder’, or ‘I manage that member of staff’, ‘I completed this handover’. They were quite a challenge, because, like the in a workplace, you talk about the ‘we’ but you don’t necessarily talk about the ‘I’.

“You can get lost in your role in a team. So the team achievements are great, but what was my achievement during that process? Answering that I found that quite difficult to navigate through or identify.

“But the tutor reading my work challenged me. Rod would say, ‘okay, so what did you do?’ And we’re having those conversations again, it was like opening your eyes to forget, you know, the ‘we’ is important, but actually the ‘I’ is important too.

‘And then it starts teaching you that you start looking at your own achievement a little bit more closer. You change your way of thinking to how it’s not about claiming credit. It’s about understanding more how important your role is in contributing to the team’s efforts on projects. How during that project, I completed this part, which meant, in turn, the team did this.”

Tip #3: A change in attitude can make all the difference

For Keighley, one of the biggest challenges was mental. It’s common to find a colleague in the workplace who will say ‘that’s not my job’. But what about when that person is yourself?

Keighley shared how for her, the “biggest challenge was stepping away from a defeatist mindset ‘that’s not my job’”.

She explained that a lot of the time, in workshops and meetings, by disassociating herself from what she thought her role was, in contrast to what she could be doing more of, and extending the scope of her role, required a different mindset.

Keighley said: “When I first joined, it was literally a case of, ‘it’s not my job’. Someone else does that, it’s not my problem. Whereas my tutor and training sort of opened my eyes a little bit. If I did a little bit more on this project, more on this task to support my colleagues, it will support the wider team more.”

And for her, to change that way of thinking, caused a shift in the way she perceived herself at work, and her approach to the role.

Keighley explained, that “once that confidence that started to grow, then I sort of used that as leverage to continue and go. My team saw that confidence for me was my biggest obstruction.

“I learned more about myself then. A lot of it was information that you got in the workplace anyway, but for me, it was understanding and appreciating how what I do benefits everybody else. The self confidence that came with the apprenticeship is absolutely astronomical, to be fair. It gave me that ability in a room to be able to say, I’m gonna give it a go.”

Keighley successfully completed an 18‑month Facilities Management apprenticeship with CCC, followed by a six‑month end‑point assessment. She achieved a triple distinction and won the Mayor of London’s Learning for Good Work Award in 2025.

At Capital City College, the apprenticeships team provides training and works with employers on providing students with the skills they need to succeed in Facilities and Estates Management apprenticeships.

From roles as Facilities Management Supervisor, Facilities Manager, Facilities Services Operative and more, CCC has seen a rise in the number of apprenticeships in recent years, with the numbers of FM apprenticeships expected to double this year compared to 2023.

Keighley’s experience shows that successful apprenticeships depend as much on employer support as formal training. As demand for skilled facilities management professionals grows, apprenticeships remain one of the most effective ways to develop talent from within, delivering qualified, confident professionals ready to progress within the FM workforce.