Applied Sport Performance Analysis placements

We have designed the course structure after detailed discussions with a wide range of external organisations in elite sport. We teach in-person one day per week which provides flexibility outside of this day to complete your placement hours and independent study. Students usually base themselves near their placement provider and travel to Loughborough each week for taught sessions.

Applicants for the course who meet the entry requirements will not automatically be provided with a placement. If you meet the entry requirements, then you will be given a conditional offer and need to secure an appropriate placement, that aligns with our course requirements, before being accepted onto the course. 

The Programme Leader works with a wide range of organisations to develop and share appropriate placement opportunities. These involve competitive interview processes so we cannot provide a placement for each offer holder for the course.

The placements developed by the Programme Leader are with a range of teams within Loughborough Sport and with external organisations in elite sport. The roles will vary from year to year. 

You should apply for the course first before attempting to secure a placement. All of our conditional offer holders are added to a mailing list so that we can share appropriate placement adverts as they become available. Many of our placement opportunities are not advertised publicly and are exclusive to our course offer holders.

The university and our staff have an extensive network of contacts and industry partners across a range of sports. There will be three different routes available to you to secure an appropriate applied performance analysis placement:

1. Placement opportunities with Loughborough Sport and our external sport partners will be shared with our offer holders via email.
2. Loughborough University and a placement provider may publicly advertise certain placement opportunities online and through our social media platforms.
3. Applicants can attempt to secure their own placement opportunity via their professional contacts or apply to placement adverts identified through sites such as The APFA, UK Sport, Jobs in Sport Science and sporting organisations own websites.

When applying for a placement opportunity through an external advert, you will need to discuss the role, responsibilities and support available with the Programme Leader to assess the suitability of the placement before being accepted onto the course.

Once you have identified an appropriate placement opportunity, you will need to go through a formal application and interview process. This will either be organised in combination with the university or be organised solely by the placement provider. This will typically involve creating a CV and covering letter outlining your suitability for the advertised role, completing applied tasks and answering standard interview questions to assess your current skill set and alignment with the organisation’s values and requirements.

You can apply for a performance analysis, data science/ insights or recruitment analysis placement in a sport based on your career goals, but they will need to align with our course requirements and guidelines:

• We focus on funded placements for our MSc course.
• Taught sessions require in person attendance each week, we focus on placements within a 2-hour radius of our Loughborough campus to support this.
• Placements should involve no more than 25 hours per week and allow students to attend taught sessions each week.
• Placements need to be able to provide a high level of mentoring and professional support.
• There needs to be adequate access to industry-standard performance analysis resources to support your development and complete coursework assessments.
• Placement providers will need to agree to our placement terms and conditions and provide a nominated placement mentor.

All queries around potential placement opportunities should be shared with the Programme Leader for review before they will be approved. To find out more about placements and work-based learning at Loughborough please review our ‘Student Placement Charter’.

Roles are likely to be confirmed from April onwards and be advertised throughout spring and summer once funding and adverts have been approved and completed.

Staff in elite sport are extremely busy and receive a high volume of requests for opportunities to gain applied experience. They are often unable to reply or prefer to work directly with partner institutions to advertise and recruit placement roles through a formal process. We advise against contacting a large volume of professional organisations online.

Our staff have close working relationships with a wide variety of teams in elite sport due to their extensive experience working in applied practice. It is now common for teams to work directly with universities on an annual basis. Please apply for roles shared by the university or review and apply for roles advertised formally online.

Students have benefited from placements with Arsenal FC, Aston Villa FC, Brentford FC, Chelsea FC, Coventry City FC, Derby County FC, Leicester City FC, Leicester Tigers RFC, London Mavericks, LU Basketball, LU National Tennis Academy, LU Swimming, Lightning Netball, Lightning Rugby, Liverpool FC, Manchester City FC, Nottingham Forest FC, Nottinghamshire CCC, Sheffield United FC, Sheffield Wednesday FC, the ECB, the NFL Academy and Wolverhampton Wanderers.