Marine Heatwaves 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 Marine Heatwaves Industrial Placement 2026 to help us make a difference to our planet. 

As our Marine Heatwaves Industrial Placement, 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. 

Marine Heatwaves (MHWs) are highly destructive events that damage the local ecosystem in a myriad of ways (e.g. sea grass die-offs, coral bleaching). These are becoming increasingly common with climate change. The 2023 Summer MHW in UK waters was the subject of much media attention, with press queries directed at the Met Office. In response, the Ocean Forecasting Team developed a marine event monitoring system (called Maremon) which scrutinises sea surface temperatures (SSTs) across the globe in near real time. 

This placement’s primary objective is to expand the Maremon system to provide a 7-day MHW forecast for waters around the UK. This would require integrating forecast data from our 1.5km resolution Atlantic Margin Model (AMM15) into the Maremon processing system. The next step would be investigating how well this system can predict MHWs by looking at its outputs for known historical MHWs. If there is time, this project can be extended to use buoy data to study changes in MHW activity below the sea surface (a poorly understood area of research). 

This information would be incredibly valuable in forecasting the physical and biogeochemical impacts of MHWs and allow us (and other organisations) to research potential methods of mitigating the impact of such events.  

Towards the end of this project, a report will be produced summarising the research undertaken. There is scope for this report to be published in international publications (such as the Copernicus Ocean State Report), increasing the candidate's profile. 

Your key duties 

• Support and training will be provided throughout your placement. The first step will be to learn and use the Met Office systems and software used to run our forecast and monitoring capabilities. This includes the basic principles of how an ocean forecast is produced and how to retrieve this data from the supercomputer. 
• Next you will need to undertake research to gain an overview of the Marine Heatwave research field and understand how Marine Heatwaves are defined. The team will provide an introduction but independent research into the field is encouraged. 
• This information will be the starting point to write new (and also modify pre-existing) code to extract and process forecast model data from the supercomputer and use this to produce a MHW forecast dataset. 
• You will need to update the webpages used by Maremon to display this forecast dataset for our clients to navigate through. This information could be used for press enquires and for ecologists to plan their conservation work. 
• Due to its importance, its accuracy will need to be validated by comparing it to historical events using statistical analysis and a formal report written.  
• A previous summer student had their heatwave research published in the influential Copernicus Ocean State Report. If time allows, we would like you to expand your report for inclusion in the next issue. 
• Since this is an emerging scientific field, we would encourage you to investigate any unusual phenomena you discover during your work. 

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:  

• We live and breathe it - studying a physical, mathematical, computational, environmental science or similar subject. 
• We're experts by nature - experience of computer programming, for example using Python. 
• We keep evolving – an ability to analyse datasets and present your findings in a report. 
• We're better together – ability to work within a team and collaborate on projects together. 
• We're a force for good - interest in climate science and helping to find solutions to mitigate the impacts of climate change. 

 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.