Year in Industry

Our courses offer you the opportunity to enhance your graduate employment prospects by undertaking a Year in Industry. 

Each year over 100 students from the School of Design opt to take our Year in Industry pathway, meaning they spend the third year of their four year degree on a placement with a host organisation. 

Why choose a Year in Industry? 

A Year in Industry is not only a fantastic opportunity to gain experience of working in your chosen industry or field of expertise before you graduate, but it is also a chance for you to put the knowledge and skills you have gained during the first two years of your degree into practice. You can spend a year immersing yourself with one organisation or try a multitude of placements to explore different organisations and career paths. 

Whilst on placement you could be in a fast-paced creative agency, or a high end fashion design company, an international retailer, a product manufacturer or an art practitioner developing their latest exhibition. Whatever option you decide to do youll be expanding your skillset, creating your professional network and developing your professionalism all of which will help you to secure graduate employment in the future.

How does it work? 

In your second year you'll attend seminars that will help you identify the type of placement(s) you wish to do and guidance on how to create your CV and complete successfully interviews. You will also get advice on professionalism in the work place as well as practical support on finance and overseas opportunities. 

You'll spend the third year of your four year degree on placement. It's your choice whether you work with one company or multiple companies during the year, with the duration of placements varying between 4 weeks and 12 months. Your placement(s) could be in and around Leeds, in London, close to your family home or overseas – in Europe, North America, East or Southeast Asia or even Australia! 

You'll choose which placements you wish to apply for, and you'll decide on how you organise your placement year, but we ensure you're guided throughout the process of finding a placement as well as supporting you while you are on placement; every placement student is allocated a Placement Tutor for the duration of the placement year. During the placement year you'll invited to come back to campus to meet up with fellow placement students to exchange experiences and opportunities as well as having the opportunity to talk with staff about your progress.

What kinds of placements are available?

The enthusiasm and impressive abilities of our students mean that many organisations welcome our students every year, we also have well established relationships with business across the UK. This means that we can help you to find placement opportunities with over 400 organisations from multi-national brands to local design agencies. 

Recently we have had placement opportunities with:

• Net-a-Porter
• ASOS
• Burberry
• Cohen and Wilks
• WGSN
• Jasper Conran.

Want to find out more?

If you have any questions about our Year in Industry, contact Ben Bradley, Year in Industry coordinator.