Apprentice Charlotte Halsey is just one of the boys when it comes to the world of work.

Charlotte, 18, of Pontypool, is an apprentice customer service engineer with BT - a role which sees her up a telegraph pole one day and working in a customer's home the next.

Charlotte said: "I wasn't really interested in just going into an office and staring out of the same window everyday when I left school. I've always been interested in this type of thing, I even did my work experience with an electrical engineer."

She became one of 12 apprentices taken on by BT each year as part of it's Openreach scheme. She is in her second year and is one of only four women apprentices.

Openreach has a commitment to the Modern Apprentice Scheme and aims to employ one per cent of its UK-wide workforce as apprentices each year. This year there are 250 such apprentices working with BT.

The BT Apprentice scheme, of which Charlotte is a part, won the Learning and Skills Council Large employer of the year award 2007.

Dave Humpreys, Openreach Academy Manager for South Wales, said: "We take on apprentices from aged 16 and anyone can apply. the oldest one we had across the UK was 30. We are keen to attract more females into engineering.

"We recently attended a two-day careers event at the Velodrome in Newport and Charlotte came along with us to help promote the apprenticeships and the fact that they are open to everyone."

Charlotte is pleased she made the decision not to go for an office job when she left school "I like meeting the customers and when someone is really pleased to get their phone working again, that's great. I work throughout the area and I learn something new everyday. Recently I've been on a driving course and I'm also in university as part of the apprenticeship. It's great."

Although during the working day Charlotte can be seen driving a BT Openreach van or carrying a ladder to a telegraph pole, she's keen to stress that she does like girlie things as well.

"I love going shopping," she said.

"My friends think this job is really interesting and they like the van I drive. Most of them are in university and they think it's quite cool that I'm out doing this," she said.

"To my workmates I'm just an apprentice. I do anything the lads can do. I don't get treated any differently because I'm a girl."

She also has her sights set on a future with BT when she can go into coaching new apprentices and sharing her knowledge and experience with new starters.

Rachel Regan is a coach. She started as an apprentice with BT in 1998.

She said: "I always wanted to become a coach right from when I first started my apprenticeship. I've done various other jobs within BT but i always wanted to come back to work with the apprentices."

Charlotte said being coached by a former apprentice gave them someone to look up to who they knew had gone through the same training that they were undertaking. It also shows that there is a career ladder within the organisation which anyone can climb.