Placement year

The graduate job market is highly competitive, so having first-hand practical work experience can help you stand out from the crowd. This is why we offer students on our undergraduate degrees in chemistry give the opportunity to take advantage of our Industrial Placement scheme.

A year spent on professional placement between your second and third year of study can give you valuable work experience, develop your interpersonal skills and even introduce you to your future employer. Studies show that a placement year can really help you stand out in the competitive graduate jobs' market.

The Department provides assistance with the arrangement of a supervised, structured year spent in industry with a leading chemical company.  We have robust, long-standing links with the chemical and pharmaceutical industries and students have been able to spend a year working with such major companies as AstraZeneca, BioFocus, GlaxoSmithKline, 3M Healthcare and Pfizer UK.

  • GSK
  • RSK
  • Merck KGaA
  • Campden BRI
  • H&R ChemPharm
  • Akzonobel
  • Nemaura Pharma
  • Reckitt Benckiser
  • Microsearch Laboratories
  • Lubrizol
  • Home Office - Centre for Applied Science and Technology
  • Pirelli Tyres
  • GE Healthcare

Satisfactory completion of the placement, including a literature report, leads to the award of a Diploma in Industrial Studies (DIS). 

You can find more information about placements from the Careers and Employability Centre web pages.