The Durham difference; from educational excellence to employability

Building professional experience 

Alongside their studies, Durham students are increasingly working to build experience and skills that will help them to build their careers. We offer students the opportunity of experiences outside their academic studies to develop them as people, as members of a community and as leaders in their chosen field. 

There are a number of Careers and Enterprise programmes on offer, there are internships and work placements to build practical skills and experience as well as focused support through tailored workshops and training sessions alongside individual support. As a direct result of these activities, 97% of students involved ‘felt more confident about entering the workplace’.  

Internships and work placements 

The team can support with short term work experience, internships or placement years. By undertaking a placement year, students are able to apply their knowledge and skills in a work setting and have the opportunity trial a particular career or working environment as well as enhancing employment opportunities.  

Harvey Leak-Smith (Engineering, St Aidan’s College, 2019-24) undertook a civil engineering placement with Network Rail in the East Coast Track Maintenance Team. The placement gave insights into regular maintenance activity as well as a data analysis project analysing track and soil data to better understand, predict and prevent desiccation related track faults during hot-dry years. 

He felt that he was able to explore potential career routes within civil engineering. He was also able to undertake secondments to gain design experience. 

“The placement year improved skills more applicable to industry than academics. This gave me a wide range of topics and scenarios to discuss within job applications and interviews. I was able to show my ability to apply theory and experiences to tangible client-related work.” 

Harvey graduated from Durham in 2024 and has begun his career with global sustainable development engineering consultancy, Arup.  

The Level-Up programme 

At the beginning of this financial year, the team introduced Level-Up, a programme designed to offer direction as well as empower students and boost self-confidence. As the student community diversifies, Level-Up offers invaluable support from University staff as well as helping to develop a professional network. On average, 140 graduates apply for each graduate opportunity, so ensuring that all, regardless of their background, can access and thrive in the graduate labour market has never been more crucial.  

Level-Up is designed to support students from backgrounds that are under-represented in Higher Education. The programme offers resources like blogs, videos or articles as well as personal, tailored support from staff of industry-specialist coaches. The programme is self-paced and flexible enough to balance their academic and personal commitments.   

Student Erin Donnelly is a firm advocate for the programme and wrote an article for student publication Palatinate to spread the word to fellow students:   

“Ultimately, I cannot recommend becoming involved in the Level-Up scheme enough. For widening participation (WP) students, especially those who perhaps feel overcome by the prospect of their future working life, or for those who have not had the time to even consider it yet, this transformative programme will provide you with a beneficial head start in life.” 

Next steps 

The team is also developing an ‘Inclusive Employer Toolkit’, to support employers to implement recruitment and workplace practices that are inclusive of an increasingly diverse student body at Durham.  

The Educate North Awards will be announced in April.  

Read more:  

• About our Careers and Enterprise service 

• About the Educate North Awards 

Image: Harvey Leak-Smith during his placement at Network Rail.  

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