Technology Graduate Executive in Manchester

Closing Date of Applications: 13/02/2026

September 2026 Intake Recruitment Timeline:

• Assessment Centre in Manchester - Early April 2026
• Second Stage Interviews (Virtual) - May 2026
• Final Interviews in Manchester - Late May 2026

Our Story:

Established in 2013, City Football Group is the world's leading private owner and operator of football clubs, with total or partial ownership of thirteen clubs across the world. City Football Group also invests in other football-related businesses and serves as a global commercial platform for our partners, whilst fulfilling our purpose of empowering better lives through football on a local and global scale.

Our Winning Team:

Our purpose is to empower better lives through football. We are proud of the role City Football Group clubs play in their localities, delivering positive economic, social and environmental impact through our operations and through programmes and activities that bring about meaningful, lasting change.

The City Football Graduate Programme is designed to build core capability and skills to platform you for a successful technology and software engineering career within our organisation. Each placement is designed to develop key skills, knowledge and behaviours that will support the business and your long-term career. You will work across selected Technology teams contributing directly on the development and delivery of strategic projects, technology initiatives and delivery of software.

The programme provides experience of working in a leading global sporting organisation and the opportunity to see and feel what the industry has to offer. Whilst being supported through in-role development and on-rotation mentoring, the role is perfectly placed to experience and contribute to a high-performance culture.

Over a two-year period, you will undertake an initial induction and onboarding period followed by 4 rotations into different departments within City Football Group's Technology functions: each rotation lasting approximately 6 months. Your final placement is intended to be a route into a permanent role within the Group, having honed your skills and experience to launch a successful career in Technology at City Football Group.

City Football Group's Technology Departments are tightly integrated into the operations of the company and span across several core innovation areas: Fan Technology Solutions; Football Technology Solutions; Business Technology Solutions; Insights, Intelligence and Analytics; Infrastructure and Service Delivery; Architecture; and Cyber Security.

This is Your City:

City Football Group have some unique benefits such as free breakfast and lunches as well as free access to the running club, padel court, onsite yoga and bootcamp. All of which are situated on campus with modern and collaborative working spaces and free car parking. The core benefits package includes 26 days holiday plus your birthday, private medical insurance, employer pension contribution, private health insurance, dental plan, cycle to work scheme, give as you earn and life assurance. There are also lifestyle and partnership discounts on offer.

Your Impact:

• Software Development: You will design, build and maintain software solutions that power fan-facing, football and business platforms. This includes working with modern software architectures, APIs and cloud-native services, applying engineering best practices such as version control, automated testing, CI/CD and code reviews. You will contribute production-quality code and learn how to build scalable, secure and maintainable systems.
• Data Analytics, Insights and Engineering: You will learn how to analyse large sets of data to uncover hidden patterns and insights. This will involve using statistical techniques, machine learning algorithms and data visualisation tools. You will gain hands-on experience in manipulating and cleaning data using programming languages such as Python and SQL.
• Technology Project Planning & Management: You will learn how to support and ensure the smooth delivery of technology projects in a large and complex business. This will involve scoping out project parameters, timelines, identifying key milestones, monitoring and managing workflow.
• Leadership & Communication: You will develop your leadership and communication skills by working on projects, and you will learn how to manage expectations, handle conflicting priorities, and communicate effectively with different audiences.
• Infrastructure and Service Delivery: You will learn about infrastructure components such as servers, storage networks and data centres. You will also learn about virtualisation, cloud computing and other emerging technologies. You will learn about service delivery models such as ITIL and how to apply these to deliver high-quality IT services, spending time embedded with our service delivery teams at our offices at the City Football Academy and in the Etihad Stadium.

What we are looking for:

Key Competencies: You will have a University Degree or equivalent Further Education qualification in Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, Engineering or any closely related subject area. This will be backed up by practical examples of interest and work in and around Information Technology, AI, Data and Analytics, Machine Learning or related areas. We are particularly interested in candidates with a strong interest in software development and engineering, demonstrated through academic work, personal projects, internships, placements, or contributions to open-source or portfolio projects.

You Will Possess:

• Minimum grade 2:1 at degree level.
• Ability to adapt to new situations and working environments.
• Well organised with the ability to prioritise & manage multiple deadlines.
• Strong analytical, process and problem-solving skills.
• Good attention to detail to produce robust reports and analysis.
• Strong motivation for self-development.
• An ability to seek and use feedback/training opportunities to improve performance.
• A focus on results & quality, able to meet internal deadlines for providing work outputs.
• A sense of knowing how and when to collaborate and with a solution-focused attitude.
• A desire to work with the customer in mind and build good relationships.
• An openness to new ideas and different perspectives.

Desirable: Any Coding Skills (HTML, CSS, .NET, Python, SQL, JavaScript, iOS & Android development); Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence skills; Language skills (French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian).