Hive mind help: student placement

[DeskJockey]

A friend's daughter is looking for an industry placement for a year, I know some of you work or have worked in the areas she's interested in, so posting for advice, ideas or possibly opportunities.

She's interested in:

* Roles using GIS, could be related to mapping through GIS, possibly including planning or project management
* Environmental management in terms of processes such as flooding, rivers, coasts, water resources
* Flood risk/monitoring/prediction
* Sustainability roles
* Environmental projects or schemes e.g rewilding, restoration
* Infrastructure/engineering for environmental projects e.g. wastewater management, reservoirs
* Environmental policy

Also happy to do a combination of office/desk based work as well as fieldwork or practical elements. ideally looking for a paid, year long placement between July 2026 to September 2027, London or Exeter area.

She's already applied for quite a few, but opportunities are few, and applicants many.

Any help, advice, ideas or opportunities are appreciated.

[DeskJockey]

Possibly @Swervin_Mervin or @duncs500 ?

[jamcg]

Tried river and canal trust? I’m guessing yes as it’s probably the most obvious one

[Marv]

Just looked at the website for the company I work for who do the kind of work you list, and it currently says "We are currently unable to accept new internship applications as we continue to process a high number of enquiries – please check back soon."

[nuttinnew]

London-ish way, I wonder if the Lower Thames Crossing could offer anything suitable.

[Zonda_]

I used to arrange these placements for T level students. After trying different approaches I found the best way was to ask for a meeting with the manager of the business/section you are interested in, have all the information to hand if/when you go to a meeting and sell them the benefits. It was surprising how many of the businesses I approached ended up taking the students on permanently after their experience.

[duncs500]

In terms of the technical and modelling type stuff, IME most of that is done by your typical larger consultants (Mott Macdonald etc), but probably competitive to get a placement with one. EA obviously do a lot of what she's interested (although outsource a lot to above consultants too), but I guess most of the undergrads they take are already signed up to their sheme?

There may be some smaller boutique consultants out there who would tend to sub-consultant from the bigger guys, you might find something with a more environmental modelling twist but I've found most to be civil and temporary works design.

You could look at contractors working on environmental (eg. EA / flood defence) type projects but then you're moving more into the project delivery stuff and maybe environmental advisor roles. Not sure if that's her thing, certainly there's an element of environmental/sustainabilty policy to it, and supporting teams in getting their waste management all above board, all that good stuff.

It's really hard to know what to say as your list is pretty broad. If she's just enthusiastic and not to fussy beyond it being environment related then I might be able to help more.

[DeskJockey]

@duncs500 she's pretty keen, and more focused on getting experience than finding the perfect opportunity. I'll check with her.