Weather Observations Industrial Placement 2026

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.

As our Weather Observation 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 will 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.

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 will be a member of the Observations Operations team, supporting the delivery of weather observations from a wide range of networks and systems, such as surface weather stations and weather radar. Our environmental observations are fundamental to almost all the services the Met Office provides; direct data and products, models, verification of forecasts, and for providing evidence of climate change.

Your key duties

• Develop your knowledge of surface and upper air observing systems, e.g. synoptic weather stations and radiosonde.
• Monitor the performance of operational observing systems; investigate issues and carry out root cause analysis, providing information to users.
• Support the Network Specialists in the effective running of the networks to ensure the delivery of operational services.
• Working as part of a team, contribute to tasks and projects that implement changes to our observing networks.
• Present regular progress reports on the work undertaken to colleagues, both verbally and in writing, and contribute to project and team meetings.
• Document the work undertaken and the key learning points to verify progress against agreed objectives.

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:

• Ability to work with environmental observations from collection methods through to data analysis.
• Work well as a member of a multi-skilled team, capable of developing effective working relationships.
• A proactive problem solver, able to analyse a technical problem and identify the root cause.
• Able to plan and organise work using own initiative, adapting to changing requirements.
• An effective communicator, comfortable communicating technical information to a range of stakeholders.
• Proficiency in a high-level programming language such as Python.

How to apply

If you share our values, we would 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.

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 passed. 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.

How we can help

If you have any questions or would like to discuss this opportunity further, please contact us. 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.