Businesses: offer placements and internships

As part of our Bath Spa Works: Internships scheme, we're once again looking to offer our students the opportunity to work with and support local businesses.

Whether you're intending to grow your business or if you have a specific project in mind, by taking part in Bath Spa Works: Internships, you can advertise an exclusive opportunity and recruit one of our fantastic students for a period of several weeks.

All roles are required to be paid but we have various funding options available to help support paying the students in the desired role.

The intakes for employer proposals this academic year are scheduled for:

• 11 September 2023 - 19 November 2023
• 8 January 2024 - 17 March 2024
• 15 April 2024 - 16 June 2024

(Please note that these periods may be subject to change as determined by available funding.)

To register your interest, you'll need to complete our Employer Proposal Form. Please e-mail employer-services@bathspa.ac.uk or call 01225 875525 for further information.

Placements allow students to build experience as part of their course and gain academic credit for their activities, or be a valuable extracurricular undertaking. They can vary in duration and timing but range from a few days or weeks to a full year.

Short Placement Modules

Second year students from any course can choose to undertake a work placement module where they're required to source a minimum of 70 to 120 hours of work experience between October and May. These placements can be undertaken flexibly throughout the year (not exceeding 15 hours per week during term time) and can be paid or unpaid, but must provide a clear development of student's skills and attributes.

Skills Development Exercises

To help our students develop the key skills essential for the workplace, we're seeking input from employers to create short exercises to simulate situations where they could put those skills into practice. This could take the form of a problem-based scenario or a short submission of work (lasting no more than a couple of hours). These are designed to be flexible in timing so that students can complete them at any point during the year.

If you have an idea you would like to offer, or if you would like to discuss getting involved with our placements modules, please contact us via employer-services@bathspa.ac.uk.

The Professional Placement Year (PPY) - traditionally known as a sandwich year or year in industry - enables a student to undertake work with an external organisation that provides invaluable experience that enhances key employability skills. The PPY takes place between a student's second and third years of undergraduate study and lasts for a period of between nine and 13 months. A student may undertake up to three shorter placements (for example three months each) to make up the required amount of time meaning that there is flexibility in the contract lengths that businesses can offer.

As the PPY is now open for undergraduate students from all subjects, Bath Spa University is seeking opportunities across multiple sectors to advertise to the next cohort. We are seeking particularly high numbers of opportunities in the Psychology, Business and Management, and Film and Television production sectors.

To find out more about the PPY and how to advertise, please read our Employer Guide or get in touch by emailing employer-services@bathspa.ac.uk.

At Bath Spa University, we strongly believe in providing our students with real-world experiences that prepare them for the challenges of the professional world. To achieve this, we're seeking employers who would be interested in producing a live brief for a student team and then providing them with valuable feedback. The timing of these engagements is entirely flexible and adaptable to your preferences throughout the academic year.

During short projects, students dedicate around 50 hours across three weeks to collaborate within a team on a brief provided by you, culminating in a presentation of their outcomes, and receiving your feedback. If your project requires a longer period, they can work on an extended project of approximately 100 hours over six weeks.

We estimate an organisation’s commitment to be around three hours (comprising three one-hour remote or face-to-face meetings). There's no financial cost for an organisation and the university pays the students a bursary for taking part.

Providing a live brief presents an opportunity to identify potential future talent for your organisation, and gives you access to a solution for a business need that may be currently underserved due to limited resources.

To register your interest, you will need to complete our Employer Proposal Form. Please contact employer-services@bathspa.ac.uk for further information.