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T Levels: industry placements

T Levels help young people develop technical and practical skills for the workplace. They are broadly equivalent in size to 3 A Levels. The qualification is for learners aged 16 to 19 in England, who have finished their GCSEs.  

Students spend 80% of the course in the classroom and 20% with an employer, putting classroom learning into practice.

You can work with another employer to jointly host industry placements, including employers in your supply chain. 

An industry placement can be completed in 1 block, day release, or a mixture of both. See more about how industry placements work. Courses cover 24 skill areas, including business, construction, digital and IT, education and engineering. 

Benefits for your business

If you host an industry placement for a T Level learner, you can:

  • build a talent pipeline for junior positions, apprenticeships and internships 
  • give your existing staff the opportunity to gain management and mentoring skills  
  • train a young person with the skills your business needs 

You will have the option to offer the young person a permanent job once they have completed their industry placement.  

To help you consider the benefits of offering a T Level placement in your business, use the potential benefits document.

Accelerated apprenticeships

T Levels can lead to accelerated apprenticeships because it is considered prior learning. This can reduce the time needed to complete an apprenticeship programme and can save your business time and costs. 

Employer stories

This video is 1 minute long

Video Transcript

I’m Sharon Probets, I’m head of learning at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.

Our T Level students, come to us for their placement, really enjoy the time with us, go off to higher education and then come back as a graduate and start their career with us.

For us it’s been about giving young people in the local area, access to look at careers in healthcare.

My name’s Dan Baird, we work in games and immersive industry and also help students and graduates find jobs in these industries.

We’ve provided opportunities for around about 36 people now, 20 of those being T Level courses, we try and take about 20% of those students and place them into an apprenticeship.

I would 100% recommend the scheme, it gets you ready for getting into a new job instead of the classroom environment.

You’re studying as well as getting this experience and you learn a lot of skills.

So, the biggest benefit that these programmes have brought is being able to focus on developing our talent pipeline, having people come in, having to train people into our own organisation up to skill levels that we hadn’t had before.

Cost

You may have costs depending on the type of industry placement you host.

Your responsibilities

You will need to provide: 

  • a minimum industry placement of 315 hours 
  • a line manager to support, supervise and mentor the student 
  • an induction, including an explanation of relevant policies and procedures 
  • formal feedback against agreed learning goals at the end of the industry placement 

Read more about your industry placement responsibilities

Case studies

Find out how other businesses are using T Level industry placements:

Infinity 27, gaming and immersive experiences

30 second video

Video Transcript

My name’s Dan Baird, Director of Infinity 27. We’re in the games and immersive industry and also help students and graduates find jobs.

So we’ve engaged with apprenticeships and T Levels in particular. We’ve provided opportunities for around about 36 people now, 20 of those being T Level courses.

We try to take about 20% of those students and place them into an apprenticeship.

So the biggest benefit that these programmes have brought is being able to focus on developing our talent pipeline, finding fresh talent, being able to effectively train people.

Each time we engage with them we get better at our own training.

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust

30 second video

Video Transcript

I’m Sharon Probets, I’m Head of Learning at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.

We’ve engaged with the T Level science programme. We have had 5 T Level students come through.

For us, it’s been about giving young people in the local area access to careers in healthcare.

Once they’ve completed their T Level, have gone onto higher education, we would be their employer of choice when they start their healthcare career with us.

Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust have committed to T Levels and are hosting industry placements for 17 students from Bedford College, incorporating both clinical and non-clinical roles within the organisation.

This includes hosting T Level students in numerous wards, areas and departments in the Trust, so that students can gain experience of health and science careers such as nursing, midwifery, pharmacology, sterile services and many of the allied health professions.

The Trust recognise that hosting industry placements better prepares students for further study and to work within healthcare in the future – with some students progressing onto employment within the Trust, through apprenticeships and other routes.

Stacy Sherwood, Practice Educator said:

"We want to support local students to gain the skills, knowledge and experience they will need to progress in their chosen field; whilst also opening their eyes to the possibilities the Trust has to offer them after gaining their T Level qualification, including apprenticeships in a range of different areas.

We are also keen to provide students with an extensive induction to the health sector and to introduce them slowly into clinical practice, to make sure the pathway a student is heading towards is the best fit for them.

"The Trust’s Talent for Care team is delighted to welcome T Level students and is excited at the prospect of working with them in support of activities aimed at developing a future supply chain of healthcare apprenticeships."

Find out more

Find out more about industry placements.  

Register your interest in hosting industry placements

Your interest will be shared for over 12 weeks with T Level registered schools and colleges.

More resources

Interim Tile - T Level online events

Online events to help you offer industry placements.

Interim Tile - Follow T Levels on Linkedin

Get regular updates on T Levels.

Interim Tile - Sign up for the employer skills newsletter

Get updates on apprenticeships, T Levels, other skills programmes, policy changes and events.


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