Employability

Studying towards the right qualifications is a huge part of achieving your aspirations – but there’s so much more you can do to make the best possible start in your career. That’s why we’ve developed a learning community that’s full of extracurricular opportunities and support to make you career-ready – wherever you want that career to take you.

In addition to courses developed in collaboration with industry, you can take advantage of career support services, and networking events.

It’s all about expanding your horizons – from the day you start, to your graduation, and beyond.

Work placement opportunities

All our undergraduate degrees and many of our postgraduate degrees offer the opportunity to undertake a work placement as part of your studies.

Securing a placement brings with it many benefits – real-world experience, excellent networking opportunities and insight into your chosen industry – all of which will help you stand out. But it will be competitive. You’ll need to demonstrate confidence, creativity, determination and resilience to secure a great placement. Ultimately, it will be your responsibility to find and organise your placement, but we’ll be on hand to support you throughout this process.

And for many of our students, the hard work pays off as they return to their placement company or organisation in their first job role after graduating, having demonstrated their ability while on placement.

Placements explained in more detail Read students' placement stories

Careers support

From your first day at BU and for the rest of your career after you graduate, you’ll have access to a wide range of career support to assist and guide you on your journey.

From our experienced and friendly Careers team and faculty placement staff, to our careers portal, MyCareerHub, we can help equip you with the skills and experience you’ll need to make your mark.

Throughout the year, we host a range of face-to-face and virtual events. These include recruitment fairs, part-time job fairs, weekly career workshops and employer events. All are designed to introduce you to a variety of companies and make that all-important first impression.

Find out more about BU Careers advice and resources

The BU Skills Development Programme

One of the ways that we help you to get career-ready is through our Skills Development Programme.

As the name suggests, it's all about developing your personal and professional skills alongside your degree – enhancing your employability, confidence and overall ability.

Based on our research into the most in-demand skills in today's job market, we've grouped skills into nine different areas. Choose from interpersonal and collaborative skills to creative and innovative skills, lifelong learning skills to global citizenship skills and much more – all at a pace and time that suits you.

What's more, you will be able to complete the skills' activities both on-campus and online, through tailored LinkedIn Learning pathways (where you'll be awarded LinkedIn Learning certificates that you can showcase on your profile) and MyCareerHub.

Discover more about the programme

Jenna from the Careers team gives an overview of our Skills Development Programme

Working with industry

We have excellent relationships with many local, national and international companies and, as a result, we can tailor our courses to meet industry needs. Many of our courses are accredited by professional bodies too, meaning your degree is recognised by potential employers as being professionally relevant and up to date.

When it comes to valuable industry insights, a large number of our staff have worked, or are still working, in the industry that they lecture in, bringing the knowledge and understanding of best practice and latest developments into your lectures and seminars.

What’s more, lots of our courses offer the opportunity to train with industry-standard equipment and in industry-standard facilities so that you’re familiar with how things work in professional settings – meaning you can hit the ground running when you graduate.