The University of Southampton

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To meet this demand, and to ensure that our students achieve their full potential in the jobs they want, we have our own successful careers and employability initiative - launched with our first Careers Fair in February 2008.

Working with employers

We operate a vigorous programme of engagement with employers, including our annual Engineering & Technology Careers Fair in February. Throughout the year we support a full programme of employer visits, sponsored events and activities, ensuring that our students are aware and informed of the opportunities available to them. We have interactions with around 300 companies each year, including our Affiliate and Laureate companies, with whom we have close partner relationships. We advertise over 400 technology positions every year, directly to our students and alumni (soton-login only). For further information contact Joyce Lewis, Careers Hub Director.

What do our students do after Graduation?

ECS is currently ranked first equal in the UK for graduate employability in Electronics and Electrical Engineering, and second equal for Computer Science. These are excellent results, reflecting the very high regard that employers have for our graduates. The majority of ECS graduates take up high-quality roles in the technology industry, as software engineers, app or Web developers, technology analysts, design engineers, systems engineers, or power engineers, working in leading technology-based multinationals or recent start-ups from London’s Tech City, in government departments and organizations, online retailers, innovative energy and transport providers, and the technology departments of City finance houses. Read more about our graduates. Our Physics and Astronomy students are also highly ranked for graduate employability and take up roles in the space, energy, and finance industry, as well as undertaking PhD research and joining the teaching profession.

Our students join us with high expectations of their futures - you can hear some of them talking about this in our video: What ECS students say: Plans for the future

Internships and placements

The majority of our students take up paid summer internships during their degree studies, usually after years 2 and 3. These offer great experience and also provide our students with better knowledge of the kinds of roles which are available to them as graduates. Summer internships last from six to 14 weeks. Our new MEng with Industrial Studies degree offers a 12-month placement with a company as part of the programme and a number of the Physics degrees also offer internships in industry as well as specialized research positions.

Enterprise

A number of our students start their own companies or innovative projects while they are studying. Recent examples include Realtime Trains and Garmsby. We provide mentoring from experienced entrepreneurs for students keen to explore their ideas, and a number of our student societies focus on enterprise, including ECS Entrepreneurs and HackaSoton. We also work closely with organizations such as Entrepreneur First.

For further information, to advertise jobs or internships, or discuss ways of working with our students, contact Joyce Lewis, Careers Hub Director.