Data Science Community Champion Industrial Placement 2026

Job Introduction

The Met Office is delighted to open our advertising for Industrial Placements 2026.  

This is an exciting opportunity to join the Met Office on a 12-month Year in Industry placement, commencing at the start of July 2026, 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 a Data Science Community Champion Industrial Placement 2026 to help us make a difference to our planet. 

As our Data Science Community Champion Industrial Placement 2026, 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. 

You will be a part of the Data Science Community of Practice team that supports the adoption of machine learning and artificial intelligence across the Met Office. You will work with Software Engineers, Data Scientists and Scientists across the Met Office to tackles key challenges and exploit opportunities to make it easier to do data science efficiently at responsibly at the Met Office.

You will work collaboratively to discover, evaluate and promote the right set of tools, techniques and platforms. You will also create tutorials and example code to demonstrate the use of techniques tools and platforms for real data science problems in weather and climate research and organising events such as tutorials and hackathon to make use of these materials and help people get started using data science tools and techniques.  

An important aspect of your work will be demonstrating how these techniques can be used efficiently and responsibly, in line with Met Office Values. You will also get involved with general support and coordination of DS CoP activities such as Data Science surgeries, seminars and other events.

Your key duties 

• Work with researchers at the Met Office and partner organisations to create tutorials and demonstrator Jupyter Notebooks showing approaches and solutions to data science and machine learning challenges in Environmental Science that demonstrate efficient and responsible use of these techniques.
• Contribute to the creation and delivery of environmental data science events, tutorials and hackathons.
• Gather information on requirements for users of Data Science tools and platforms at the Met Office, and contribute to exploring and testing suitable tools and making them available to the community.
• Work with key Met Office teams to make tools and datasets from these teams available to the DS CoP and ensure they community needs.
• Support the management, organisation and communications of the Data Science Community of Practice.

Why join us 

Our work is life-changing, often life-saving and always life-enhancing. The Met Office is Great Place to Work UK certified. We are also featured on their ‘Best Workplaces in Tech’ 2023 and 2024 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 2027, 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. Show technical insight through creation of data-driven solutions showing the effective application of technical knowledge, understanding and skill - We’re Experts by Nature.
2.  Engage with others to understand the requirements for your work and its wider context - We’re Better Together.
3. Consider good Quality Assurance processes, best practice, standards and/or regulations in your work, especially for code, data and use of AI - We Live and Breathe it.
4. Communicate knowledge accurately and concisely in written documents and discussions in small groups - We’re Better Together.
5. Proactively develop your skills and support others in developing theirs - We Keep Evolving.

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 7th December 2025. Please note we often receive a high volume of applications, but we will contact everyone who applies once the closing date has past.   

Interviews will be completed by February 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 in 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, 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. You will need to achieve full security clearance within your first 6 months with us.