Spending time working in industry, applying knowledge to real problems, learning through practical experience and gaining valuable career insights should provide you with a considerable advantage in your search for graduate employment.
Your placement is spent at one or more organisations over 45 weeks, enabling you to get firsthand experience of a real role with real responsibilities. You will be able to apply the knowledge and skills you have acquired in a workplace setting while developing the competencies that are highly prized by graduate recruiters. A year in industry also gives you the opportunity to grow your network of contacts, attend training courses, impress an employer and in some instances secure a graduate job. If you are still unsure what you want to do when you leave university, a placement enables you to "test-drive" a career and find out if a professional area is right for you.
Additional award
By undertaking a year on professional placement or working in industry, you will gain an additional award alongside your final qualification. If you undertake a professional placement year you will gain a Diploma in Professional Studies (DPS) or if you complete a year in industry you will gain a Diploma in Industrial Studies (DIS).
Featured placement year companies
Our students have been able to secure employability-enhancing placements with a wide variety of organisations.
At Loughborough we have robust, long-standing links with the chemical, pharmaceutical, and manufacturing industries, as well as companies in the technology and business sectors. Chemistry students have been able to spend a year working with such major companies as AstraZeneca, BioFocus, GlaxoSmithKline, Syensqo, 3M Healthcare, Lubrizol, RB (Reckitt-Benckiser), Nemaura Pharma, Pirelli Tyres, GE Healthcare, and the Home Office. Students studying computing degrees have been able to obtain placements with the likes of IBM, Microsoft and Samsung Electronics.