Undergraduate placement

Putting your passion into practice.

A placement is your opportunity to get work experience, build your professional network, apply the skills you've developed at university to the workplace, and ensure your CV stands out when you graduate.

Our Careers and Placements team will support you in applying for a placement. From one-to-one support and careers fairs, to our connections to hundreds of employers, we'll help you develop the key skills to succeed.

Placements on some degrees such as Primary Education, PGCE, and Nursing are compulsory. You can find our more on the course page.

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 you graduate.

All our undergraduate degrees offer you the option of a professional placement year which you take between years two and three. 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 either 30 weeks or one-year long. Once you’ve completed your placement year you then return to Roehampton to finish your final year of study.

While securing a placement is your responsibility, our Careers and Placements team will 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 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:  

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.

IBM          Hewlett Packard          SAP

“The Placements and Careers team provided me with invaluable support in my placement search including practice interview sessions, CV workshops and guiding and mentoring through my placement search. It boosted my confidence and I learnt a lot of new tips for interviews."

Samia, BSc Marketing, Placement at HP UK&I

Student placement stories

Discover what our students gained from their placement year — and why they believe it’s an experience you won’t want to miss.
 

Other opportunities to gain professional work experience

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:

  • Handshake: an online careers resource for Roehampton students and graduates where you can search for internships and placements, find UG placement year checklists and book an appointment with a Placement Adviser’
  • 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, and many are supported through our partner, Santander Universities.
  • Internships are tailored to fit around student study schedule and take place In Autumn and Spring Terms, allowing you to fit it in around your studies and other commitments.
  • Internships are open to select students registered at the University of Roehampton.
  • 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. 

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.

“Roehampton's careers service helped me land a placement where I got real-world marketing experience, discovered my career goals, and built connections to stand out in the job market"

Alister, BSc Marketing, Placement at BMW Group Financial Services UK

Want to know more about our placements and careers support?