Early Careers

Need a career that will nurture your ambitions? Great things start at ground level.

Whether you’re looking to develop your industry experience, or just starting out on your career journey, we offer a number of routes into our business for capable, can-do people. Whichever path you choose, you’ll be given opportunities to develop professionally and personally throughout your time with us.

Whichever path you choose, you’ll be given opportunities to develop professionally and personally throughout your time with us.

Degree Apprenticeships

If you’re looking to develop your skills and earn a living while still completing your studies, a degree apprenticeship might be the way forward. We offer a range of degree apprenticeship opportunities in both site and office-based roles. Our degree apprentices work alongside experienced staff to gain specific skills, as well as receiving classroom-based learning to achieve a nationally recognised qualification.

We have relationships with external bodies, such as Construction Skills, colleges, universities and training providers to establish strong foundations for our degree apprenticeship frameworks.

Work placements and experience

Work placements are a fantastic way to experience a taste of life in our industry without having to commit to a specific path.

For university students, our year-long industry placement programmes focus on on-the-job learning, to complement their university course. Placements focus on technical skills and the progression towards increasing responsibility. Those who show consistent progress might be considered for employment post-graduation, via our graduate programme.

At VolkerFitzpatrick, we have partnerships with a number of UK universities and offer undergraduate opportunities, like ICE, RICS and CICES accredited industrial placement schemes for students on MEng and BEng civil engineering and BSc quantity surveying and construction commercial management degree courses.

Students demonstrating exceptional performance during placement may be awarded a bursary for their final university year, and the opportunity to return to VolkerFitzpatrick on the relevant graduate scheme. We have a working relationship with Job Centre Plus, and collaborate with them on careers initiatives for local communities. We also run programmes for unemployed adults, which includes pre-employment training, career assistance, work experience and commissioned training.

Graduate programmes

Our graduate programmes are a three-year experience designed to maximise the skills and abilities graduates need to excel in their chosen field. We recruit graduates on their potential and give them the opportunity to develop within a structured framework programme.

Graduate opportunities are available in:

• Engineering: Our engineering graduates have the opportunity to develop innovative engineering and construction solutions, across a range of disciplines, on some of the UK’s biggest construction projects.
• Quantity surveying: We offer an excellent opportunity to develop the skills needed to become a leading Quantity Surveyor. You will receive training and mentorship from some of the industry’s best, ensuring your ability to manage and control the costs of major multidisciplinary projects from tender to post completion.
• Construction management: Our graduates have the opportunity to work across the UK on some of the biggest and most complex projects, working with some of the best project managers, designers and in-house service teams to become the leaders of tomorrow.
• Corporate services: Our corporate services graduates help us provide the unique support that our business needs to achieve its objectives, whilst ensuring consistency of information, systems and procedures across the group. We also offer a combination of programmes that can lead to professional accreditations.