The Information Communication Technician standard has three distinct options. At the end of the apprenticeship you will be competent in either:   1) Support Technician  The Support Technician role is desk based resolving system user queries and resolving faults in a helpdesk environment. For example, a Support Technician in a Travel Agent business would help to ensure the operation of the customer bookings system. When the system fails the business would contact a Support Technician to report the problem and either get it fixed or escalated to an engineer. The Support Technician would be expected to rectify or escalate faults rapidly in order to reduce the financial impact and damage to the business’s customer reputation.     2) Network Technician  A Network Technician role is usually desk based but may involve visits to client's premises to resolve issues. For example, a Network Technician working in a university or a college they may be installing a computer lab as a training suite including cabling and hardware requirements. They may be required to install cloud services to support a business expansion and provide better network services.   In a contact centre environment, they may use network management tools to collect and report on network load and performance statistics to improve commercial outcomes. In a retail bank they may contribute to the implementation of maintenance and installation work using standard procedures and tools to carry out defined system backups, restoring data     3) Digital Communications Technician  A Digital Communications Technician may be desk or field-based resolving faults and issues with communications systems. For example, working in a defence organisation operates as an Online Network Technician they would be at the heart of every mission solving complex issues, enabling the secure exchange of mission critical and often Top-Secret information. It would be their responsibility to administer and provide specialist communications and IT equipment including classified information and cryptographic material to guarantee Operational Capability is delivered to the Command. A Digital Communications Technician working for a large telecom's organisation could be involved in the build, test and integration of end-to-end customer solutions to support customer order delivery. Not to mention the build, test and maintenance of core and mobile radio access networks, working with both internal and external customers.

• K1: Approaches to back up and storage solutions
• K2: Basic elements of technical documentation and its interpretation
• K3: Principles of root cause problem solving using fault diagnostics for troubleshooting
• K4: Principles of basic network addressing for example binary
• K5: basic awareness of the principles of cloud and cloud-based services
• K6: fundamental principles of virtual networks and components
• K7: Principles of cultural awareness and how diversity impacts on delivery of support tasks
• K8: Methods of communication including level of technical terminology to use to technical and non-technical stakeholders
• K9: Different types of maintenance and preventative measures to reduce the incidence of faults
• K10: key principles of Security including the role of People, Product and Process in secure systems for example access and encryption requirements
• K11: fundamentals of physical networks and components
• K12: approaches to documenting tasks, findings, actions taken and outcome for example, use of task tracking and ticketing systems
• K13: basic awareness of legislation in relation to disposal of waste materials for example Waste Electronic and Electrical regulations (WEEE)
• Support Technician
• K14: fundamental principles of operating systems, hardware system architectures and devices
• K15: principles of remote operation of devices including how to deploy and securely integrate mobile devices into a network
• K16: fundamental principles of peripherals for example: printers and scanners
• K17: principles of virtualisation of servers, applications and networks
• K18: principles of disaster recovery, how a disaster recovery plan works and their role within it
• K19: principles of Test Plans, their role and significance
• K20: fundamentals of purpose, creation and maintenance of asset registers
• K21: approaches to system upgrades and updates and their significance
• K22: approaches to interpretation of log files, event viewer and system tools
• K23: basic elements of network infrastructure architectures including Wi-Fi and wired networks
• Network Technician
• K24: Principles of OSI layers
• K25: Principles of cloud and network architecture (including Wi-Fi)
• K26: Principles of DNS / DHCP
• K27: Awareness of Cloud platforms, such as AWS, Azure, or GCP
• K28: Principles of LANs and WANs
• K29: Approaches to virtualisation of servers, applications, and networks
• K30: Principles of network protocols
• K31: Principles of API's and Web Services
• K32: The different types of cloud storage
• K33: Back up procedures and their importance
• K34: Principles of databases and migration
• K35: Key principles of Cloud Security and firewalls
• K36: Awareness of DevOps methodology and tools, such as Puppet, Chef, Git, Docker

• Interpret and prioritise internal or external customer's requirements in line with organisation's policy
• Apply the appropriate tools and techniques to undertake fault finding and rectification
• Apply Continuous Professional Development to support necessary business output and technical developments
• Operate safely and securely across platforms and responsibilities maintaining the security of personal data of internal and external stakeholders
• Communicate with all levels of stakeholders, keeping them informed of progress and managing escalation where appropriate
• Develop and maintain effective working relationships with colleagues, customers, and other relevant stakeholders
• Manage and prioritise the allocated workload effectively making best use of time and resources
• Complete documentation relevant to the task and escalate where appropriate
• Install or undertake basic software upgrades, either physically or remotely
• Establish and diagnose the extent of the IT support task, in line with the organisation's policies and SLA's
• Provide remote/F2F support to resolve customer requirements
• Maintain a safe working environment for own personal safety and others in line with Health & Safety appropriate to the task
• Support Technician
• Identify and scope the best solution informed by the system data associated with the task
• Test and evaluate the system's performance and compliance with customer requirements.
• Escalate non routine problems in line with procedures
• Use basic scripting to execute the relevant tasks for example PowerShell, Linux
• Carry out routine maintenance across systems, (such as IT, Communications), ensuring organisational compliance at all times
• Apply the necessary security, in line with access and/or encryption requirements
• Network Technician
• Use a range of Cabling or Connectors equipment in line with technical requirements for example physically or remotely
• Test and evaluate network environments
• Monitor performance and usage of a network
• Deploy applications on a network
• Set up storage and data access for staff
• Apply necessary security measures, in line with access requirements to a network