IMHO
I would not advocate applying for any position in engineering in aviation.
Management see engineering as an expensive nuisance and is treated as such. (Pilots in Oz also in the accountants gun sights)
Grassmere Avenue's post is true for when I did my apprenticeship but sadly no longer the case. You end up jack of all trades master of none and you are not accredited or qualified to do anything else.
Once you have completed your training you have a life of 24 hour 7 day shift work ahead of you. Which is Not as glamorous as it sounds.
James russell. I have known at least 6 apprentices with same career aspirations as your self. All keen to learn which is refreshing but all bar 1 were not keen to do. The thing about maintenance engineering is learning the system, how to fix it and how to do it more efficiently next time. The would be pilots in my experience were not interested in rounding this part of their skill set as they thought they would not need it. Wasted my time.Please don't be one of them.
If I wanted to fly and was willing to do a trade, pick electrician or plumber. You will be well paid plus you can do cash jobs to pay for your flying. Do a diploma in business aviation and go from there.
If you end up in the sticks doing flying work to get your hours, there is always work for building trades in rural areas and not so much for an inexperienced aircraft engineer especially in GA. Where your big plane experience is worth nothing until you can prove otherwise. And you will probably have to prove it for no wages.
(not sure but I think the current QF apprenticeship is big plane only and has GA stuff removed from curriculum)
Last but not least QF have a terrible reputation for how it treats its apprentices. In 95 they sacked a whole year of 4th year end apprentices and have not been able fill apprentice vacancies since. As someone mentioned above they are looking for many apprentices, but they can't get enough applications to fill the numbers. eg Back when I applied 20 something years ago they had over 2000 aplicants for 60 jobs without advertising.
Now with advertising they cant fill the positions open.
ACS recently told all their AMEs that there was no hope of progression to becoming licensed, so their career is now stifled subsequently many AMEs and some LAMEs are leaving at a rate never seen before at 1 per week.
For mine. I am in and wish I could get out, but the road for any new starters is completely different to the one I travelled which I believe will be much less rewarding in job satisfaction and monetarily.
Look before leap
