Over the last few months, we have hosted 10 work experience students from a mix of backgrounds and with differing ambitions. This includes three longer term placements starting their career journeys with us. We’re thrilled to be welcoming students back and to be able to offer opportunities across the practice and disciplines once again.

By offering students the opportunities to come in and experience life as an architect or interior designer, sharing what it feels like to be immersed in a creative environment and work as part of a team, we are learning as much from them as they are from us.

“From the beginning, I felt very included in an extremely welcoming environment. I’ve had such a fun time working here and have been made to feel very welcome within the team. AWW is an exciting firm with a fantastic front-line approach to relevant industry innovations including MMC and environmental and social change.”

The students that come to us are set a brief that enables them to proactively develop their skills and knowledge: they leave with a final piece that evidences their time here. Our placements have the opportunity to work across the practice to gain a varied perspective and define their own experience.

Some stay for a few days while others are with us for several months.

“This experience has been invaluable to my professional development in this field and I am highly grateful for the opportunity from AWW.”

One of the commitments we made in our Social Value pledges was to continually develop our thinking, invest in our team and to inspire the next generation to raise standards and to support diversification in the industry. Our key value indicator (KVI) against this was to create opportunity by offering mentoring to five young people per year to share our knowledge and to enhance their learning experience.

We are delighted that this summer we have already exceeded the targets we set ourselves by hosting so many students. There has been a long hiatus due to the pandemic and this is something we’ve really missed being able to do.

“Thank you so much for this week I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s also helped me a lot with figuring it out what I would like to continue doing in the future.”

It is through good design and leadership that we enable positive social and environmental outcomes.

Investing like this in the next generation continues to inspire us. Alongside these placements, our own mentoring scheme and outreach work with local universities, we are also supporting Design West and Shape My City. This award-winning scheme offers a year-long programme of workshops and seminars for students aged 15-18 interested in a career in the built environment.

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