Undergraduate Placements

A placement year is an excellent opportunity to boost your employability. It gives you the opportunity to experience working in an industry you’re interested in and gain real-life workplace skills to help you succeed after graduation.

All our undergraduate programmes offer you the option of a professional placement year which you take between years two and three of your degree. Alongside the valuable skills and experience you’ll develop professionally, if you complete a placement year it’ll be stated on your degree transcript.

Placements tend to be 11-13 months long. Once you’ve completed your placement year you then return to University to finish your final year of study.

While securing a placement is your responsibility, we’re here to support and guide you through every step to help you achieve your ambitions.

There’s a whole team of people here at Roehampton to help you in your search.

We will:

• Keep you updated about potential placement year jobs
• Help you identify suitable roles to apply for
• Support you with your CV, cover letters, application forms and portfolio
• Hold mock interviews, application reviews and prepare you for interviews
• Introduce you to employers at Employability Events
• Carry out pre-placement checks.

We also work closely with hundreds of employers, and industry and professional bodies who tell us the key skills they are looking for from students and graduates so we can help you develop them.

A placement year is an amazing chance for you to get ahead in your career before finishing university.

You will:

• Develop new skills and knowledge: Learn new skills and apply your subject knowledge directly to your working environment.
• Get a better understanding of your future career direction: Discover your strengths, what you enjoy, and what you do and do not want to do before you graduate.
• Gain new contacts: You will build up key contacts and find out about different career paths.
• Have better career prospects: Work experience helps you stand out on your CV, at interview and demonstrates key technical and 'soft' skills employers seek, like time management, communication, teamwork and leadership.

Remember, we're here to support you as a Roehampton student in your search for a placement.

There is also a wealth of online resources available to help you, and you can also search individual company websites for opportunities. You can browse some of the following sites to get an idea of what roles are available:  

• Bright Network
• E4S
• Rate My Placement
• Employ-ability (opportunities specifically for disabled students)
• Gradcracker (careers for STEM students)

Like applying for any job, you should apply for many different roles to ensure you secure a placement.

Our students have been successful in gaining placements at major corporate organisations.

This includes IBM, HP and SAP, among others.

Our careers team can help you with a whole host of other work opportunities as a Roehampton student and as a graduate.

While a placement year offers you the opportunity of long-term, structured experience in the workplace, internships and work experience can be a great way to get short periods of experience outside of your degree.

Our careers team can help you in a number of ways:

• CareerLink: an online careers resource for Roehampton students and graduates where you can search for internships and job opportunities, build tailored CVs and cover letters, practice interviews and much more.
• Career Mentoring Scheme: connect with a mentor from our network of graduates across the world in a huge range of industries, who will help you build your professional network.
• URJobs: our on-campus recruitment agency will help you find part-time work as a student, and support you in finding full-time work as a graduate.
• Workshops and one-to-one-support: join our practical workshops or drop-in for a one on one session with an adviser.

The Roehampton Internship scheme offers paid internships locally and across London, giving our students and graduates the opportunity to complete paid work experience to enhance their CV.

• All internships are paid at the London Living Wage of £10.85 per hour and many are supported through our partner, Santander Universities.
• Internships can be full-time or part-time and take place throughout the academic year, allowing you to fit it in around your studies and other commitments.
• Internships are open to all students registered at the University of Roehampton. The scheme is also open to graduates and alumni.
• You are limited to completing one internship per academic year.
• Unfortunately, we cannot accept applications from partner institutions. The Roehampton Internship Scheme is exclusively for University of Roehampton (Roehampton campus) students and alumni.

At Roehampton you’ll find a huge amount of opportunity to get involved and have your voice heard.

You can:

• Become an elected representative in the Students’ Union in roles ranging from RSU and College President to Mental Health Officer and Environmental and Sustainability Officer
• Become a Programme or School Representative, and share the voices and concerns of your fellow students with the University.

We can also help you secure volunteering experience both on and off-campus. Not only does this give you the opportunity to give something back to the community, it is an excellent change to develop new skills and add specific experience to your CV to help you in your career after graduation.