Industrial Placement Systems Engineer

Your impact

Do you want to work on real-time projects alongside leading scientists and engineers within a globally renowned company?

At Leonardo, we’re looking for industrial placement students who want to be part of something extraordinary—shaping innovation, advancing technology, and enhancing global safety. 

Leonardo’s Industrial Placement Programme offers you a paid placement to develop your knowledge and skills in our innovative and practical environment. In addition to working with our highly skilled engineers and business professionals, successful completion of an Industrial Placement can often lead to an offer for a permanent graduate position and securing your place on our industry leading Graduate Development Programme.

This programme is remunerated £26,228 per annum.

How this role fits in

Luton is the home to around 1,000 people who are involved in the design and development of Leonardo’s Electronic Warfare (EW) capability, which is used to protect airborne platforms from a range of RF-based threats.  This includes:

• The protection systems for current and future RAF and Army aircraft, including Typhoon and Apache.
• The technology development platforms being developed by the UK’s Team Tempest to support the development of a new 6th generation aircraft within the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP).
• Concept demonstrators for future Electronic Warfare technologies and systems.
• Air Platform Protection systems for export customer aircraft.
• Technology to draw insights from the vast amounts of data collected by our electronic surveillance systems using artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Role description

As an Industrial Placement Systems Engineer you will work alongside some of the most talented engineers in the UK. You will support the development of world-leading technologies and capabilities across multiple Avionic Systems and Platforms.

Industrial Placement Systems Engineers have the opportunity to be involved in different phases of the systems engineering lifecycle to create and deliver new and emerging capabilities required by our customers; from understanding the customer’s requirements, developing system architectures and concept designs for the next generation of EW capability, through to integration and testing of equipment and systems.

Key Responsibility Areas

Working as part of an established systems engineering community and supported by a team of experienced engineers, you will be responsible for:

• Developing practical skills in engineering design and development for complex systems, understanding key processes and technologies.
• Gaining an understanding of the EW domain to support the development of relevant products and technologies.
• Working closely with engineers across multiple disciplines to solve problems.
• Completing tasks to a high standard in accordance with appropriate processes and procedures.
• Developing and applying your academic skills to solve problems, generate ideas and be proactive within the team.

What we need from you:

Qualifications

All of our Industrial Placement roles require you to be currently studying for a degree in a relevant discipline.

For the Industrial Placement Systems Engineer role, the acceptable degrees are: aerospace/aeronautical engineering, computer science/systems, electrical/electronic engineering, general engineering, mathematics, mechanical engineering, physics, and systems engineering.

You must have an understanding of mathematics to at least A-Level standard, and a basic understanding of electronics.

You should also ideally have experience of working with engineering development tools (e.g. MATLAB, Simulink, Rhapsody, Cameo, DOORS).

Why join us

At Leonardo, our people are at the heart of everything we do. We offer a comprehensive, company-funded benefits package that supports your wellbeing, career development, and work–life balance. Whether you're looking to grow professionally, care for your health, or plan for the future, we’re here to help you thrive.

• Time to Recharge: Our employees are entitled 25 days of annual leave plus bank holidays. As a Summer Placement student you will receive this allowance pro rata.
• Secure your Future: Benefit from our award-winning pension scheme with up to 15% employer contribution.
• Your Wellbeing Matters: Free access to mental health support, financial advice, and employee-led networks championing inclusion and diversity.
• Never Stop Learning: Free access to 4,000+ online courses via Coursera and LinkedIn Learning.

Security Clearance

Many of our roles are subject to security requirements and, where applicable, export control restrictions arising from UK Government requirements and customer obligations many of our roles are subject to security and export control restrictions set by UK Government Security requirements and customer obligations.

As a result, and in line with the UK Government Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) requirements, all successful applicants will be asked to provide evidence of identity, eligibility to work in the UK, criminal record declaration information and employment and/or education history verification for the previous five years.

For staff operating in more sensitive posts, there is an additional range of personnel security controls referred to as National Security Vetting (NSV). As part of this process, a range of factors may be considered, including an individual's background, travel history, nationality, previous nationalities held and other information relevant to the vetting assessment.

To be eligible for National Security Vetting at SC level, applicants will generally be expected to have continuously resided in the UK for the previous five years. For DV clearance, this is typically ten years. In some circumstances, time spent overseas may be accepted, with additional overseas checks. Additional vetting requirements may apply upon appointment.

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