Summer Vacation Work

Summer vacation work in the engineering industry provides an excellent opportunity to gain industrial experience that is highly relevant to your degree course, as well as providing a useful source of income over the long summer vacation. Many companies, both local and national offer paid vacation work, many of these opportunities arising through the Department´s strong industrial contacts.

Although many of the vacation work opportunities are not tied to traditional student sponsorship schemes, many companies are increasingly offering bursaries to students following a summer of vacation work. Amongst the companies who employ our students during the summer vacation are National Grid Company, Ingenion Designs Ltd, Advanced Design Electronics Ltd, Zetex plc, Francis Searchlights, Germain Systems, ICI, British Telecom, EDS, Hyder, Ove-Arup, Netcom Global, Eclipse Magnetics, Switched Reluctance Drives etc.

STEP Scheme

The Shell Technology Enterprise Programme is a national programme, offering over 1,500 placement opportunities with Small to Medium Enterprises. STEP projects run through the summer vacation and last for eight weeks, at the end of which students produce a written account of their experience and make a presentation to a panel of judges.

Cash prizes are awarded to the "Most Enterprising Students". These students are invited to a competitive event, at which there is the change to compete for a regional title and the title of "Uks Most Enterprising Student", for which cash prizes are also awarded. Participants in the STEP scheme receive a weekly allowance, which is exempt from tax and NI contributions.