Early careers

Early careers

Early careers at Ofcom

It is our mission to drive diversity, social inclusion and future-focused capability through our early careers pipeline. Our school leaver, undergraduate and graduate programmes are all designed to give you the experiences, skills, and qualifications you need to get your career off to a flying start.

You’ll have the chance to collaborate on major projects, network with our passionate teams, and make a real tangible impact. We offer engaging learning experiences and opportunities for personal development and growth to help you become a great future leader.

Graduate programme

Our two-year graduate programme is designed to give you an introduction to the many different departments and specialisms we cover at Ofcom. We build your knowledge and give you first-hand experience on everything from policy and research, through to communications and cyber-security.


While you’re taking part in our graduate programme, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of how our work aligns with parliamentary policy and guidance. You’ll have the opportunity to support senior colleagues as they engage with Government officials from sectors like the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).


You’ll also have the opportunity to develop your research skills – learning audience measurement techniques and translating data into insights to help inform major reports such as the BBC Annual Report, or the Media Nations and Online Nation reports.
Graduates can also get involved in our work supporting vulnerable customers, as well as opportunities to work within our nations offices to help tackle issues that are impacting one area of the UK.


For our specialist pathways, graduates have an opportunity to develop a broad range of technical and behavioural skills in their chosen area, building on the knowledge and skills they already have.
As an Ofcom graduate, you’ll benefit from our Early Careers Learning Plan. This is an umbrella programme that brings together all of our early careers colleagues (including apprentices) to attend formal Development days and additional training. This additional training includes Ofcom related skills such Project Management, Governance and Accountability, and Research and Data, as well as covering other skills such as planning, presenting and writing . We also provide the opportunity to hear from other industry experts and motivational speakers.

Apprenticeships

Our apprentice programmes are an incredible way for you to start your career, getting practical experience whilst studying and being paid a salary.

There is a number of qualifications you can work towards – we currently have apprentices in Policy, Business Administration, Finance, Data Analytics, Cyber Security and Economics.

Whatever qualification you choose, it will be fully funded via the apprenticeship levy and provided by a specialist training provider. Apprenticeships vary in duration and level and are completed with a combination of in work training and studying, supported by 20% off the job learning.

Throughout your apprenticeship, you’ll get to learn and apply new skills to the job and build a portfolio of work, before completing a final assessment.

Internships

At Ofcom we believe internships can play a crucial role in shaping your career. That’s why we offer a wide range of summer internship opportunities, designed to help undergraduates gain real exposure to the working environment and develop lifelong skills.
Ofcom is proud to support the 10,000 Black Interns programme a new initiative in the UK seeking to offer 10,000 internships over five years, across 24 sectors, involving more than 700 companies.

Ofcom will be taking part in the six-week internship programme offering young Black African, Black Caribbean and Black British students paid work experience. This will include students who are studying at, or recently graduated from, (2018 onwards) a UK university or who are taking a gap year having completed their A-Levels with the intention of undertaking higher education. Interns will be given the opportunity to work in our offices, to gain an in-depth knowledge of our work and what we do, develop their skills and build their professional network.

Applications will open in the Autumn.