Together with your degree, the following skills are the Top 10 key skills sought by employers.

These skills are highly influential in terms of your employability:

  • Verbal Communication
  • Teamwork
  • Commercial Awareness
  • Analysing and investigating
  • Initiative/ self-motivation
  • Drive
  • Written Communication
  • Planning & organising
  • Flexibility
  • Time management

No matter how much you have learned through your studies, you need to underpin this theoretical learning with a period of ‘hands-on’ learning where you can develop the above skills.

Key benefits of work placements include the opportunity to..

  • Link academic study and theory to real industrial practice
  • Real world exposure to the latest technology, work behaviour
  • Learn the ‘language’ of industry
  • Assess a possible company for future employment
  • Build a network of future career contacts
  • Practise existing key skills and learn new ones
  • Experience the atmosphere and pace of industrial practice
  • Confirm existing career aims or discover new careers
  • Learn critical reflection as a means of self-development
  • Apply problem solving in a real work environment