Virgin Atlantic Airways

Winner: Over 250 employees - Long-term placements (4-12months) category

• Accenture
• Halfords
• HJ Heinz Company Ltd - Highly Commended
• Intel Corporation
• Microsoft - Highly Commended
• PSA Peugeot Citroën
• Virgin Atlantic Airways

 "We want to be able to grow our own technical engineers as much as possible and our placement scheme plays a significant part in achieving this." Simon Mason, Virgin Atlantic Airways

Virgin Atlantic Airways is an aviation engineering specialist who offer 12 month placement opportunities to students with an engineering background. Students not only gain from the responsibility of a placement position but can also transfer many skills from the placement into their final year of University.

Students complete four three-month placements throughout their time with VAA, giving them an overall idea of how an airlines engineering department functions. This helps the students solve problems and complete tasks more efficiently as they can view issues from several perspectives.

The judges admired the fact that though the scheme is not yet perfect the company receive regular feedback from students and are committed to improving the experience for future years.

• Placement students are in great demand from line managers as they know what a valuable resource they are
• Students are valued for their fresh approach and bringing the latest academic learning and analytical skills.
• Feedback from universities has reported how much more mature and business savvy the students were after their placement

Photography by Jacopo Pandolfi/JP Images