Become a Dstl graduate or student
Experience innovation first-hand at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl).
Graduate opportunities
If you join Dstl as a graduate, you’ll get hands on training and development on different projects.
Your growth and development will be tailored to your role and we have mentorships, chartered programmes and accreditations to keep you learning.
You’ll benefit from working with experienced peers as well as other early careers graduates.
Becoming part of Dstl, you’ll take pride in your work knowing your contributions have genuine impact in defence and security.
Undergraduate opportunities
We occasionally have opportunities for undergraduates to join a summer scheme or 1 year industrial placement.
By taking part, you’ll gain essential practical experience within your degree discipline.
You’ll join one of our teams and be assigned tasks whilst learning and collaborating with your peers. Your contribution will be to bring fresh ideas to our projects and, depending on your placement area, could be involved in any of the following:
- Practical lab-based tasks
- Supporting trials
- Working in IT (helping to advance our research)
What you get out of it
You will:
- gain personal development
- benefit from valuable experience transitioning from university to the workplace
- be rewarded with new skills
- get job satisfaction
- receive a salary
What we look for
We mainly look for science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) graduates who also have a positive and enthusiastic attitude.
Where you will work
You’ll be based at Porton Down near Salisbury, or Portsdown West near Fareham, spending at least 70% of your time on site. This gives you the best chance to learn, grow and develop with peers and experienced professionals.
When you can apply
Our graduate vacancies are advertised on Civil Service Jobs. Set up an account and a Dstl alert now so you’ll know when we’re recruiting.
How we will support you
When you join Dstl you’ll start to shape your career from day one, with ongoing support through:
- collaboration with experienced professionals (internally, in industry and in academia)
- role-specific courses
- our in-house graduate community
- encouragement to belong at work
Read about some of the interesting careers here at Dstl.
Find out more about the benefits of working for us, and equality and diversity at Dstl.
Updates to this page
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Updated graduate information
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Adverts for 2024 graduate opportunities have now closed.
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Project manager placement role removed.
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Summer and industrial placements closing today but graduate placements open today 16 October 2023.
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Project management placements extended until 16 October 2023.
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Now featuring on Dstl's homepage.
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Added links to latest summer and industrial student placements for undergraduates, taking place 2024 to 2025.
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First published.