Careers and employment
Our award-winning Careers Service offers practical advice and support to help you achieve your career goals.
Careers Service
Our Careers Service offers many opportunities for you to develop a broad range of skills, grow in confidence and learn more about yourself.
The service is open to all students and our recent graduates, and it offers:
- online jobs board advertising work during semester, vacations and after graduation
- face-to-face meetings with a wide range of employers, from top multinationals to local SMEs
- comprehensive website and online toolkits supporting your career development
- personalised guidance and help with job searching, applications and interviews
- opportunities to interact with and learn from business professionals, including access to the University’s worldwide alumni network
- bespoke internships in the UK and abroad
Careers Service staff can also help you to work while you study or advise on volunteering opportunities.
As our graduates are ranked 26th in the world by employers1 , the University of Edinburgh an excellent choice for a postgraduate education with prospects.
We’re committed to developing the skills and attributes that will enhance your capacity both to compete in the job market and to achieve your full potential within the global community.
I cracked one of the most competitive graduate programmes and the Careers Service was a great help during what was a very stressful time with little margin for error.
Graduate salaries
Edinburgh alumni earn an average salary of £49,500 within five years of leaving university. (Emolument.com)
Platform One
Platform One is an online space where all members of the University community, past and present, can gather together. Its aim is to provide a single online location where students, alumni, staff and volunteers can share, interact and advise.
Initially conceived as a way for students to draw on the knowledge and life experiences of former students for careers advice, Platform One has stepped beyond this idea to offer something broader and more inclusive. Visit Platform One to set up a profile and be inspired.
Postgraduates come to us with a broader outlook and more rounded and developed skills, both in their chosen discipline and more generally in terms of their communication skills and self confidence. We value their proven aptitude for self-driven learning and further study.
Work-based projects
Many of our Schools offer support in undertaking work-based projects, in partnership with an employer, as the basis of your masters dissertation.
Internships for PhDs
We encourage the provision of part-time, on-campus internships, which offer project-based, paid employment to current PhD students.
Employ.ed – a collaboration between the Careers Service and a number of partners – offers a range of structured internship programmes to fit your career.
Employ.ed for PhDs
Support for entrepreneurs
Edinburgh Innovations' enterprise service for students is the University’s award-winning programme for student entrepreneurs. Working with hundreds of students each year by backing bright ideas and helping them start new businesses.
Public engagement opportunities
Our Institute for Academic Development (IAD) hosts the Beltane Public Engagement Network, so if you’re interested in promoting your research to wider audiences you will have access to resources, events and funding opportunities to help you develop the necessary skills and experience to do so.
Beltane Public Engagement Network
Postgraduate-level study helps bring fresh perspectives to creating innovative solutions to academic publishing challenges. The analytical and research skills learned in many Edinburgh postgraduate courses are of direct relevance and importance to the Edanz workplace.
Post-study work visa for graduates
The Graduate Route is a post-study work visa that will allow you to stay in the UK to work or look for work for 2 years after your degree has been awarded, or for 3 years if you have been awarded a Doctoral qualification.
1 QS World University Rankings 2024