Observing a professional in the workplace can help students to understand and gain an insight into a job role and organisation. Work shadowing provides an opportunity for students to experience the realities of a professional environment within a certain industry, and to question and learn from professionals to help inform their career and plan their next steps.
The Imperial College London Work Shadowing Scheme aims to offer a short but rich experience for students while not demanding a great deal of time from the host.
The scheme involves one or more students visiting you and/or your team in your place of work. The experience should be between one to three full days in duration. Activities may include; office/department tours, observing you in the delivery of your role, sitting in on meetings or client interactions where appropriate, career focused Q&A sessions, sector/organisational insight presentations, and example tasks or mini-projects. Visit the Planning an experience tab below for more information.
The scheme is open to all first year undergraduate students studying STEM subjects at Imperial. If the scheme is over-subscribed however, priority is given to students from low-participation groups.
How to register
Host registrations for Spring 2025 are now closed. For any queries about the scheme, please contact the team at workshadowing@imperial.ac.uk.
Work Shadowing tabs
We are seeking applications from hosts in a range of employment sectors and different sized organisations as we have a diverse student population interested in a wide variety of careers.
Step one: Registration
Host registrations open each February to host a student over the spring vacation window (24 March - 25 April). You will be asked to complete an online registration form which will provide information about your organisation, your role and or team as well as detail about the expected shadowing experience being offered. Your host registration form will then be used to create an anonymised profile as part of a Directory for Imperial first year undergraduate students to review and apply to.
For guidance, please view our Work Shadowing Directory Example 2025.
Step two: Matching
Once all student applications have been received, the Work Shadowing team works to make as many positive matches as possible. Any student matched to you during this process will have expressed a strong interest and motivation in gaining an insight into your specific sector or occupational area, based on what they read on your profile.
Step three: Inductions
If successfully matched, you will be notified by the Work Shadowing team and sent some guidance on how to plan and prepare for your work shadowing day(s) as well as career topics and possible points of discussion whilst hosting the student. Matched students will be invited to a compulsory induction session run by the Careers Service.
Step four: Shadowing
Once all students have attended an induction session, we will make initial introductions via email to the student(s) matched to you. Unless you have stipulated specific dates already during the registration process, it will then be up to you and the student(s) to agree a mutually agreeable date and time for the experience to go ahead within the spring vacation window (24 March - 25 April).
Please note: you will need to have relevant public liability insurance in place and provide a health and safety induction as the experience involves a visit to your workplace. These are unpaid insight experiences at no cost to the host however, if you are based outside of Greater London, it is expected you will cover any reasonable travel costs for the student(s).
If you would like to discuss a potential experience with a member of the Work Shadowing Team, please email workshadowing@imperial.ac.uk.