School Leavers - Gap Year

Gap Year

IBM’s gap year placements are 9-12 months’ worth of experience that could transform your year out and your future prospects. They offer you an invaluable opportunity to work with a world-leading company, broadening your horizons and giving you a head start in your career.

• It’ll give you a chance to work in a global business – and put one of the world’s most recognisable brands on your CV.
• It’ll expand and develop your business skills and knowledge.
• You’ll work alongside highly influential, experienced professionals in a business or technical role.
• You’ll be paid £15,000 (pro rata) and get loads of other benefits (think shopping discounts).
• At the end, you could earn yourself a £1,000 bursary to spend on whatever you want.
• It’ll give you a valuable insight into what you want to do with your future.
• And last but not least, it may even help you decide what you want to study at university.

What will you do?

You’ll spend your first 9 months (August to May) on a challenging work placement, where you’ll support and learn from experienced professionals from across IBM. That could be in any area across the company.

Then, at the end of the 9 months, it’s in your hands. If you love what you’re doing there is nothing stopping you continuing working for us for another 3 months, or if you fancy some time off before university then you can do that too – it’s your choice.

Where will you be based?

All of the roles on are based around the UK, with most (though not all) of our technical roles based at Hursley, near Winchester (the largest software labs in Europe) and a beautiful location.

However, while we always try to match you to your first choice location, we do ask you to be flexible and willing to travel: we like to give you as much experience as possible and visiting different IBM locations – and working on different projects allows you to do that.

Apply

Job roles

Business placements

This is an ideal opportunity to learn about the business world at one of the planet’s biggest and most successful organisations. Spend your gap year in a business role and you’ll be supporting one of our many business areas, such as Project Management, business operations, market research, marketing and sales.

During the selection process, we’ll talk to you about which area suits your skills best – we want to make sure you’ll get the most out of wherever we place you. And wherever you end up, you’ll gain valuable experience helping to increase our revenue, solve our clients’ challenges and make our business run as smoothly as possible. (But don’t worry - you’ll have the chance to experience other business areas too.)

Technical placements

At IBM, we know technology – so naturally IBM is the place to go if you’re interested in technical placements. Some of the brightest minds in technology work here, and we lead the way in developing innovative software products and applications. There’s a huge amount you could get involved in - for instance, you could support experts in web design, problem diagnosis, software development, database development and technical project management.

What you do will vary depending on the area you join – but you’ll get the same valuable experience and insight, as well as support from experienced and talented professionals.

What we offer

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  A salary of £15,000 (pro rata)

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  25 days’ holiday (pro rata)

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  A laptop

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  Discounts and cash-back at more than 1,300 stores, including Apple, Tesco and John Lewis through the IBM Rewards Programme

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  Access to a dedicated social club offering everything from discounted weekends away to theatre and theme park trips.

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  Sporting teams to get involved with, loads of student networking functions and a dedicated graduate and student newsletters to keep you up to date.

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  At the end of the 9 months, a performance-related bursary of up to £1,000 to spend on whatever you want.

Support & training

How we support you

• For the day to day things, you’ll have a Task Manager who’ll help you with new tasks, manage your workload and give you the opportunity to get involved with new projects.
• You’ll also have a Professional Development Manager looking after your ongoing development and your future career plans: they’ll sit down with you to develop a plan for your year that sets you objectives and includes all the training you’ll need.
• During the year you'll have regular reviews with both your task manager and your professional development manager to assess how you’re doing.
• If you’re thinking longer term, we’ll set you up with an IBM mentor when you go onto university.
• If you want to return to work with us during university holidays, we’ll do everything we can to find you an opportunity.

Your training and development

• You’ll start your placement off with a week-long induction course, along with the other 25 gap year students. This will give you a great insight into how we work – plus, you’ll get to take part in some exciting team-building exercises.
• After this, your training and development will focus on two areas: business skills (which will help you do your job) and personal skills (which could be anything you feel will help your career). There are hundreds of courses (literally!) for you to take advantage of.

Needless to say, all of this will give you a huge head start when you get to university.

What we look for

Hopefully by now you’ll have a good idea of whether a job at IBM’s right for you. So, are you right for IBM – and how do you apply? Here’s what you’ll need.

• To be eligible to apply, you must have at least 8 GCSE’s at grade C or above including Maths and English, and at least 2 A-levels (or equivalent) at grade C or above.
• You must also be eligible to work in the UK.
• You don’t need any work experience though so don’t worry.
• Also, don't forget to attach your completed CV template – we can’t accept your application without it!

Whichever career path you choose to follow at IBM, we can offer you incredible, memorable times. You will have a great social network, gain invaluable experience in the field of your choice, learn new skills and develop expert knowledge – at one of the most successful companies in history.

Apply