Data Engineers Industrial Placement 2027

Location: Exeter HQ Met Office

Reference number: 1486

Contract: Fixed Term Contract

Hours per week: 37

Salary: £27,170

The Met Office is delighted to open our advertising for Industrial Placements 2027.

This is an exciting opportunity to join the Met Office on a 12-month Year in Industry placement, commencing at the start of July 2027, developing your skills and knowledge and ensuring you gain the most value possible from your experience with us.

You will have the opportunity to network with our cohort of Industrial Placements all over the Met Office and understand what career opportunities are on offer at the Met Office after you graduate.

We're looking for two Data Engineer Industrial Placements to help us make a difference to our planet.

As a Met Office Data Engineer Industrial Placement, the job may be suitable for hybrid working, which is where an employee works part of the week in the office and part of the week from home. This is a voluntary, non-contractual arrangement, and the location advertised will be your contractual place of work. As an Industrial Placement, we would expect you to attend the office once a week as a minimum.

Our opportunity is full-time, 37 hours per week. Our people are at the heart of what we do, and we'll do our best to agree a working pattern that works for everyone.

World changing work

From science to technology, from meteorology to management, and from planning to communication, our expertise helps us stand out as the authority on weather accuracy and climate prediction. We help individuals, industries, and government to make better decisions to stay safe and thrive. This is the Met Office. This is who we are.

• We're a force for good - focusing on our environmental and social impact
• We're experts by nature - always learning and developing to do things better
• We live and breathe it - putting our purpose at the heart of decision-making
• We're better together - understanding partnerships and inclusivity make us greater
• We keep evolving - pushing boundaries to make tomorrow better for our customers

Your world of expertise

Our Industrial Placement scheme offers ambitious and capable undergraduates the opportunity to gain valuable experience working alongside diverse and highly skilled experts in their field. You'll be working on projects that really matter and will make a difference.

As a part of the Machine Learning Operations team, you will be a part of a growing group of people who are building the services the Met Office will reply upon to power the next generation of forecasting. Our team comprises Software, DevOps and Data Engineers, Product and Delivery experts, Cloud Solutions Architects and Mathematicians. We come from different backgrounds, but we all share a passion for data and building amazing services. We are at the centre of the Met Office's plans to embrace AI and Machine Learning to inform our Weather and Climate models, and you would be joining at a crucial time as we move from experimentation to real-world operations.

Our team are all multidisciplinary, we turn our hands to multiple tasks to help deliver on the Met Office's and Team' objectives. We get involved in conversations spanning Technology, Product and Science to support our colleagues - we aim to be the first port of call for people who want to make the move from small-scale experimentation to large-scale data processing and service creation.

Your key duties

An Industrial Placement Data Engineer learns on the job, and you will develop skills while working under supervision to deliver stories in a multidisciplinary team to:

• Understand and be proficient in different data types used in the Met Office
• Understand the scripts/methods used to transform our data
• Be able to share with others in the importance of data engineering

Why join us

Our work is life-changing, often lifesaving and always life-enhancing. The Met Office is a Great Place to Work UK certified. We are also featured on their 'Best Workplaces in Tech' 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 lists, as well as their '54 Best Workplaces for Women' 2023 list.

Your package includes:

• Your salary will be £27,170
• Annual Leave starting at 27.5 days
• Access to discounted shopping, inclusive of retail, leisure and lifestyle brands

Whilst this is a temporary position until July 2028, there may be an opportunity to apply for our Graduate Development scheme upon completion of your university studies. However, this is not guaranteed and would be subject to programme availability and a successful application.

Essential Criteria, skills and experience

1. Lead Criteria: Studying towards a degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Data Engineering, or a related field which must incorporate a placement year.
2. Demonstrable experience with programming languages such as Python, Java, Scala, or R (Expert by Nature).
3. Understanding data flows, data structures, algorithms, data engineering principles, and business intelligence (BI) systems.
4. Good communication and problem-solving skills, with the ability to work independently and as part of a team (Better Together).
5. An interest in weather and climate science.

The panel may perform a preliminary sift of the lead criteria as indicated above.

How to apply

If you share our values, we'd love to hear from you! Click apply to begin your application.

Please complete your career history and provide evidence against each of the essential criteria in the supporting statement questionnaire. We recommend candidates use the CARL method (Context, Action, Result and Learning) for presenting evidence of experience and skills. Please also look at the Early Careers Programmes Application Guidance at the bottom of this advert.

Closing date: 23:59 8th November 2026. Please note that we often receive a high volume of applications, but we will contact everyone who applies once the closing date has passed.

Interviews will be completed by 16th December 2026.

Using AI in your application

We welcome applications that use AI tools for support in drafting or refining, as long as they accurately reflect your own skills and experience. All hiring decisions at the Met Office are made by people, not AI. For more details, visit our approach to recruitment.

How we can help

If you have any questions or would like to discuss this opportunity further, please contact us at careers@metoffice.gov.uk.

If you're considering applying and need support to do so, please get in touch. You can request adjustments either within your application or by contacting us. Should you be offered an interview, please be aware there may be a selection exercise which could include a presentation, written test, or a scenario-based activity. You can select your application to be considered under the Disability Confident Scheme. To be invited to interview/assessment under this scheme, your application must meet the essential criteria for the role.

We understand that great minds don't always think alike and as an equal opportunities employer we welcome applications from those with all protected characteristics. We recruit on merit, fairness, and open competition in line with the Civil Service Code.

We can only accept applications from those eligible to live and work in the UK - please refer to GOV.UK for information. We require Security clearance without caveats and/or restrictions for this role, for which you need to have resided in the UK for at least 3 of the last 5 years to be eligible, 2 of these years must be immediately preceding the point of your application.

If you feel that your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles, and wish to make a complaint, then in the first instance you should contact us at: careers@metoffice.gov.uk If you are not satisfied with the response that you receive, then you can contact the Civil Service Commission at: info@csc.gov.uk

ApplicationTips_EarlyCareers2027.pdf