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Internships

Doing an internship or a placement can be a great way to add valuable professional experience to your degree studies. It can help you develop key employability skills, increase your commercial awareness and build professional contacts. Moreover, with nearly a third of graduate roles going to those previously known to the organisation, it can give your graduate employment prospects a real boost. Internships or placements can last from a few weeks over the holiday period to a full year and are most commonly taken up between the penultimate and final year of your degree. There are also a number of shorter insight weeks and work experience opportunities aimed at first and second year students.

If you decide you would like to take a year out to gain experience of working in industry through the Year in Industry programme you will need to speak to the school's Placements Officer to make arrangements for a year out. There are also internship opportunities available over the summer months. Below you wil find some some useful information and resources about finding an internship.

The IoP have some good general advice on applying for internships.

If you are interested in the aerospace industry, Royal Aeronautical Society has a careers portal where they provide information about internship opportunities and application support to university students.

You may also find Gradcracker website a good source of information about internships and summer placements. Other sources of information include StudentJob, RateMyPlacement, and Jobs section on LinkedIn.

Below are some examples of research organisations and industrial companies where our WRIPA consortium physics students undertook their internships and placements. Additionally, take a look at the section "What can I do with a Physics Degree" for a broader diversity of industrial roles and professional destinations that physics students pursue. Feel free to explore other other resources on our White Rose Industrial Physics Academy (WRIPA) web page.

Research internships/placements

The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Industrial and Summer Placements are opportunity to do research in physics alongside leading scientists, engineers and technicians in a collaborative scientific environment.

ISIS Summer Student Scheme allows students studying for a degree in Science, Engineering or Computing to gain experience working in the scientific environment at the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source.

The Space Placements in INdustry (SPIN) scheme provides summer placement opportunities for students interested in the space sector. The scheme is managed by the UK Space Agency and supported by the Satellite Applications Catapult.

Diamond Light Source offers internship and year long placements to high-calibre students undertaking an undergraduate university degree and who are interested in scientific research.

UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) undergraduate and master placements across disciplines in the organisation.

CERN offers a number of opportunities to undergraduate and postgraduate students. For example, Technical Student Programme is aimed at undergraduate students in applied physics who could spend 4 to 12 months at CERN during the course of their studies. You can apply for one or more according to your profile and interests.

Defence and Science Technology Lab (Dstl) offer one year industrial placements and 10-12 week summer internships to STEM students. Your contribution will be to bring fresh ideas to projects and depending on your placement area, you will be involved in practical lab-based tasks, supporting trials or working in IT helping to advance Dstl research.

Government Operational Research Service (GORS) sandwich student scheme is open to students who are looking to complete a year in industry during their degree course and interested in a career in government analysis.

The Met Office (British national weather and climate service) offers year in industry placements to work on projects with glabal impact in diverse areas such as flood forecasting, science, technology, and communications.

ASPIRE: Astrophysics Summer Program for International Research Experience in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Research Internships in Science and Technology (RISE) programme in Germany offers undergraduate students from North American, British and Irish universities the opportunity to complete a summer research internship at top German universities and research institutions.

European Southern Observatory (ESO) Summer Research Programme his fully-funded programme offering an opportunity for university students interested in astronomy/astrophysics.

Space Telescope Science Institute (STScl, Baltimore, Maryland, USA) offers Space Astronomy Summer Programme to highly motivated students to work with STScI researchers on projects that include data reduction and interpretation, software development, software engineering, instrument calibration and support, scientific writing, and public outreach.