Applications for 2026 work experience placements are now open.
Closing date Friday 9 January 2026.
Each year within Libraries and Learning Resources at the University of Birmingham we offer a total of 19 work experience placements to young people in years 10 to 13 with the aim of engaging with as many different educational establishments as possible.
This year we are offering placements on the following dates
- Monday 18 May to Friday 22 May 2026
- Monday 22 June to Friday 26 June 2026
- Monday 29 June to Friday 3 July 2026
- Monday 6 July to Friday 10 July 2026
Libraries are not just about books, and these placements will give you an insight into the day-to-day workings of a modern university library. You will have a chance to work in different library teams, shadowing staff and gaining hands-on experience of tasks:
- Library Customer Support offers a variety of services including dealing with lending requests from our printed and electronic collections, answering enquiries via the online chat service, and helping users at the Help Desk and around the library.
- The Academic Skills Centre provides support to develop students’ academic, digital and mathematical skills.
- Collections, Discovery and Research Communications handles the acquisition of all physical and electronic materials in the library and manages a collection of over 1.5 million print items and one million eBooks, as well as overseeing electronic systems, copyright compliance, scholarly communications and research skills.
- The Digital Education Team look after the digital tools used by academics for teaching, and support the creating of digital content used in courses, such as quizzes and videos.
What you need to know
- To apply, you will need to complete our application form.
- It is important you tell us why you would like explore work experience in Libraries and Learning Resources.
- Unfortunately, we are unable to consider applications after our closing date on 9 January 2026.
- Work experience placements are for five days over one week, and are unpaid. We do not cover food, travel, or other expenses.
- If your application has been successful, we will send you an email by 14 February 2026 offering you a work experience placement. If you wish to accept this offer, it is important that you reply to confirm your acceptance, otherwise your placement may be offered to another candidate.
- As places are limited, we are unable to guarantee you will be offered a placement.
University of Birmingham students
If you are a University of Birmingham student enquiring about Internships or long-term placements, please contact your College Internship Officer, or for general enquiries please see the Careers Network.