Your career and employability

Advisory boards

Advisory boards

Subject-area advisory boards of employers, consultants and industry professionals help us make sure your learning is relevant to the workplace as well as future-proof, and help us develop placements, live project briefs and field trips.

• School of Architecture, Technology and Engineering industrial advisory board
• School of Business and Law advisory board

Professional accreditations

More than 50 professional organisations recognise and accredit our courses. If your course has a professional accreditation, it could give you an extra qualification in addition to your degree, a licence to practise, or exemption from professional examinations. Some courses also include membership of a relevant professional body while you are a student here.

Find ou about what professional accreditation can do for your degree.

Graduate Outcomes

Every year the university takes part in the national Graduate Outcomes survey which contacts recent graduates of UK Higher Education Institutions to find out what their career destination is approximately fifteen months after completing their studies.

Based on information from our 2019–20 leavers, and on full-time, first-degree, home graduates 91.4% of the survey population were in work or study fifteen months after completing their course at the University of Brighton.

Career development support

Our Career Development Advisers are sector specialists who know what employers are looking for in specific industries. They are based in careers centres on each campus, and they offer:

• Career development guidance specifically tailored for your sector of interest.
• CV coaching – to help you to shape your CV to bring out the best of your skills and attributes.
• Mock interviews – where you can develop and practice your interview technique in person or online.
• Detailed Employability Workbook for recording your progress in developing the Brighton Graduate Attributes.
• Handpicked student and graduate job, internship and volunteering opportunities selected for each school, and circulated to you bi-weekly, throughout term time.
• Support with finding placements, internships, volunteering opportunities, mentors, part-time jobs, business start-up and more.
• Careers support begins on day one and continues after you graduate.

Business start-up support

If you are thinking of setting up a business, now or in the future, we have a well-established start-up team who are connected to the regional business networks including many of our university Alumni. The team offer a series of advice and guidance workshops, often featuring external contributors who have launched successful enterprises themselves, as well as one to one support, mentoring, and help with competitions and grants.

Mentoring and Widening Participation

Mentoring

The university has its own range of mentoring programmes for you to choose from. Mentoring is a catalyst for personal and professional growth and it’s open to everyone - we encourage all of our students to consider taking part in a mentoring programme.

Widening Participation

We recognise that accessing the employment path you want isn’t the same experience for everyone, and sometimes there are groups or individuals who face additional or different barriers. For example:

• People with a disability
• Autistic Spectrum Conditions (ASC)
• Black and Racialised Minorities
• LGBTQ
• Lower Socio-economic background
• Women in STEM

Many organisations are creating internships, mentoring programmes, training opportunities, funded Masters or PhD programmes for identified student groups.  We find and promote as many of these as possible so you have a chance apply for these valuable opportunities to widen participation.

See the latest new visit our Widening Participation site (log-in required).

International placement and exchange support

If you are thinking of studying or working abroad for a while, we have ways to help you achieve this. The Turing scheme is open to all students at the university, whether you are taking part in the university exchange programme or finding your own international work or development experience, and can help towards the costs.

Jobs and employability portals

We have two major jobs portals – one offering opportunities for all students, and a second which specialises in providing opportunities for international students:

Careers Connect

• Access thousands of graduate jobs, internships, student jobs, part-time and volunteering opportunities, including jobs on campus, working for our university.
• See upcoming employability events and book your place.
• Book appointments with careers advisers and placements specialists.

Log-in to Careers Connect.

Student Circus

• Search Jobs with employers who have committed to sponsoring visas for international students, in the UK and abroad.
• Country guides packed with advice for getting a job in another country.

Sign into Student Circus with your university log-in.

Employability development courses

You’ll have access to short courses and seminars from our comprehensive LinkedIn Learning resource. We offer an especially curated playlist, recommend for all students and particularly those who want to go into the workplace for a placement or internship, as well as a wider selection of employability themed courses and workshops. You can highlight this learning on your LinkedIn profile.

Here are our recommended first-stage employability courses.

Mock interviews and tests online

You’ll be able to develop your interview techniques through our assessment centre practice area to get ready for those important graduate job interviews:

• Mock interviews – practise by answering interview questions online, and record your answers on video, so you can assess your performance, and send to others for feedback.
• Assessment centre tests - as used in real life by industry, from leading employers. You can practise to improve your scores in aptitude and ability tests like verbal, numerical and logical reasoning, situational judgement, i-EQ, coding, psychometric tests and much more.
• CV building tips.

Social media

The Careers blog features recruitment and networking events, news and advice from the graduate labour market, funding news, competitions and more.

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for job adverts, events, news, reposts from followers and more.

Downloadable guides

We offer Year Guides to help you develop your employability throughout your time with us.  These guides offer a checklist of activities for you to undertake which are appropriate to your year of study and include suggested resources and ideas for how the Careers and Employability team can help you.

Students’ part in Knowledge Exchange

‘Knowledge Exchange’ is the way that all the research and learning that goes on in the university turns into real-world benefit, and frequently involves students as well as academic staff, in collaboration with other groups including communities and businesses. This activity regularly has an impact in our local community, region and beyond.

Employability events

You will have a range of employability events to choose from, both on campus and online throughout the academic year. Many involve employers coming to talk to you about live job opportunities they have at careers fairs and placement or part-time jobs fairs, and others are workshops and drop-ins.

Working while you study

We appreciate that some students will want to earn extra money while studying, and we encourage you to develop extra workplace skills and experience, for up to 15 hours per week.

Degree apprenticeships

As one of the first universities in the country to offer higher degree apprenticeships, many of our courses are offered through these routes. Employers will sometimes create new job vacancies as apprenticeships, as well as offering them as development to existing employees. If you want to study an apprenticeship, you will need to find a job role before applying to the university. Apprenticeship opportunities are advertised on the gov.uk website.

Our higher and degree apprenticeships have been developed with employers and deliver nationally agreed Apprenticeship Standards – the skills and attributes that have been identified as necessary for a particular profession. In addition, all our careers and employability support and resources, including development of the universities own Graduate Attributes, are available to you as an apprentice.

Successful apprentices achieve a University of Brighton award such as a degree, across these subjects:

• business and management
• construction, engineering and the built environment
• education
• health and social care.

Fees and finance

Our student advice team are here to support and advise all students with any aspects of student finance, funding and budgeting. They can give you information about your student finance, how to supplement your loan, and offer support and advice on managing financial difficulties, including hardship funding, bursaries and scholarships.