Placement and internship opportunities for students are available within medical research and are commonly advertised directly on company websites. For inspiration we have compiled a list below of companies who offer placement schemes. Please note this list is not exhaustive.
Companies offering student placements or internships often establish strong links with Universities in the UK and opt to communicate details of upcoming placements to university students directly, for example Bath and Cardiff Universities.
Applications for full year placements usually open in November and often involve an assessment day typically including a competency interview, technical interview and a group exercise.
If you are interested in undertaking a placement and have any questions, or are an organisation that offers placements and would like to add your details to our website then please contact us.
Below, you can listen to placement students from the 2020/21 intake talk about their experience in two episodes of the Effective Statistician podcast. Topics included their motivation for doing a placement year, skills and knowledge gained, and the impact of the ongoing COVID pandemic. The students also share their recommendations and tips for anyone thinking of doing a placement year.
The first episode concentrates on the statistician role with the following students taking part:
| Malika Sachdeva | GSK | BSc in Financial Mathematics at Brunel University |
| Rajeev Sood | GSK | MMath in Mathematics at University of Bath |
| Miles Almond | Roche | BSc in Mathematics at University of Bath |
| Nick Thorne | Roche | BSc in Mathematics at University of Cardiff |
| Alex Zimmermann | Amgen | BSc in Mathematics and Statistics Sciences at University of Bath |
For the second episode, focus switched to the programmer role with three more students participating:
| Tohfah Gaibie | Roche | Integrated Masters in Computer Science at University of Leeds |
| Cameron Boddy | Roche | Integrated Masters in Bioengineering at University of Sheffield |
| Keoni Southwick | IQVIA | BSc in Mathematics at University of Bath |
In 2019, CALC did another series of podcasts talking about the career opportunities available in the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare industry – you can listen to them here.
As well as the podcasts, four further students from 2020/21 share their experiences below – click on the profiles to read more.
Many companies will advertise their placements and internships on job websites or via mailing lists such as ALLSTAT, and some contact universities directly. You can explore a number of specific placement and internship opportunities below.
Abbott | Type of Placement: Statistics Length: 13 months Pre-Requisite: Applicants should be studying for a degree related to mathematics or statistics. Placements are advertised at universities and on the Abbott careers website jobs.abbott. For more information about Abbott Diabetes Care, please visit the website. |
Amgen | Type of Placement: Statistics, Programming, Data Science |
AstraZeneca | Type of Placement: Data Science
Length: 12 months AstraZeneca offers placements for students currently undertaking a numerate degree including Maths, Statistics, Data Science, Computer Science or similar. Applications usually close in October, visit the Research & Development Undergraduate Industrial Placement Programme page on the AZ website and sign-up for job updates at the bottom of that page. |
GSK | Type of Placement: Statistics, Programming |
IQVIA | Type of Placement: Statistics, Programming |
Janssen | Type of Placement: Programming Pre-requisite: Janssen offer Statistical Programming Placement opportunities within the Statistical Programming & Analysis group based in High Wycombe, UK. Positions are advertised during the autumn semester for placements starting the following summer. Placements are open to undergraduate students studying Computer Science, Mathematics, Data Science, or another relevant scientific field. Visit their careers website to find out more. |
Labcorp | Type of Placement: Data Science Length: 12 months Labcorp offers placements for undergraduate students studying Mathematics, Statistics or Computer Science. See the Early Careers page on their website. |
Lilly | Type of Placement: Statistics, Programming Length: 12 months Lilly provides placement opportunities for undergraduates studying Mathematics or Statistics, but this is dependent on who available to manage a student that year. Visit the Lilly website and scroll down to “Our Student Placement Program”. |
PAREXEL | Type of Placement: Statistics, Programming Length: 12 -14 months Pre-requisite: Placements offered to undergraduates studying Mathematics, Statistics or Computer Science (other courses with high numerical content considered). Each year the recruitment process starts during September and October for placement years starting the following summer. Contact GraduateRecruiting@PAREXEL.com or apply directly here and search for Student Placement, Location = Sheffield, England. |
Roche | Type of Placement: Industrial Placement (Statistics, Programming, Data Science)
Type of Placement:Roche also offers an 8-10 weeks Summer internship for PhD students, contact Chris.Harbron@roche.com for details.
|
UCB | Type of Placement: PhD Summer Internship (Statistics, Programming, Data Science) |
