Network Engineer 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 Network Engineer Industrial Placement 2026 to help us make a difference to our planet. 

As our Network Engineer 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. 

Best-in-class technology expertise: As a Network Engineer Industrial Placement, you will work with cutting edge technology, helping to keep Met Office employees and contractors connected both internally and to the outside world and supporting our world-leading scientific capabilities.

High calibre teamwork: as a key member of a vibrant team of circa 20 high skilled Network engineers, you will benefit and foster a culture of knowledge share, collaboration and continuous improvement. 

Exciting projects: you will get involved with a mix of complex, technical issues, and large-scale life cycle projects. There are opportunities for experiences in data centre networking, next generation firewalls, cloud-based security solutions and SD-WAN.

Your key duties 

• Install, document, maintain and troubleshoot networking equipment.
• Assist in the supervision of network engineering works at Exeter HQ and remotely.
• Responding to and resolving incidents, investigating and diagnosing network problems and working with users, other technical staff and suppliers as appropriate.
• Implement changes as required by the business to meet the demands of systems delivery, including switch, load balancer and firewall configuration.
• The maintenance of local and wide area networks for the delivery of weather data and enterprise communications.
• Work closely with your team of network & technology experts and senior leaders within the Met Office.

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. Currently studying for an undergraduate degree with a significant networking/communications technologies element. (Expert by nature)
2. A keen interest in IT and keeps up to date with current and future IT developments. (Keep evolving)
3. Effective analytical and problem-solving skills.
4. Can plan and organise work using your own initiative.
5. Demonstrates evidence of good oral and written communication skills (Better together)
6. Has awareness of at least one programming/scripting language i.e. Python, Powershell.

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.