Careers resources for BAME students
The Equality Act 2010 makes it illegal to discriminate against anyone because of their race, including colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin. However, we know that BAME students can face barriers in obtaining graduate jobs or internships.
When you are considering employers, you may want to research their staff networks and staff team, as well as their published diversity statements.
Some employers have specific programmes and initiatives to improve their diversity and support those from a Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic background. We hope you will find the following list of networks and programmes useful.
Note: some of the schemes listed below may be closed for their current round of applications. However, we hope they will run again in the future, so it is worth checking back.
- Black Excellence events (Target Jobs) for Black heritage students (search Black Excellence to see events)
- Bank of England Black Future Leaders Sponsorship Programme (1st or penultimate year students), see Bank of England early careers, apply November-January for the following June.
- BDO Black Heritage Insight Programme (3 day virtual insight into accounting, possibly followed by a summer internship or brand ambassador role), advertised by Bright Network
- KPMG Black Heritage Talent Insight Programmes (graduating this year / recent graduates)
- Morgan Stanley Entrepreneurs in Action summer mentoring programme for Black students
- Equity recruitment agency and network aims to increase representation in insurance and the City, by offering mentoring, networking and recruitment to internships and graduate jobs.
- iCAN Insurance Cultural Awareness Network, volunteer run networking, supporting multicultural inclusion across the insurance sector
- Black Excellence in Law annual event (December) for Black heritage students
- Aspire to the Bar annual event (February) for Black heritage students
- Society of Asian Lawyers
- Black solicitors network offers career support and free student membership
- MI5 Summer diversity intelligence internships
- Civil Service summer internship programme (in final 2 years at university or new graduate)
- Civil Service early diversity programme (1st years) is under review
Find out more about Civil service, central and local government careers
Charityworks has a Fast track scheme for BAME applicants, offering development experience, and a fast track through their graduate scheme recruitment process.
- Coding Black Females - London based non-profit organisation providing support and networking for Black female developers
- BBSTEM - Black British Professionals in STEM offer mentoring to their student members, and have a jobs board
- Association for Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers AFBE-UK offers student membership (£10 per year), workshops, CV and job interview help.
- Creative Access - opportunities, support and training for people from Black, Asian and ethnically diverse backgrounds (as well as other under-represented groups) to work in the creative industries
- Black Britain Unspoken - filmmaking initiative from Warner Bros. Discovery in collaboration with Media Trust for Black British storytellers, filmmakers and creatives
- NCTJ Diversity fund for journalism training
- Guardian Positive Action scheme
- Penguin Random House The Scheme six month training programme for underrepresented groups in publishing
- Harper Collins trainee scheme
- Taylor Bennett Foundation offers mentoring and summer internships to support more people from a Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic background to pursue a career in PR.
Find out more about careers in journalism and publishing
Find out more about careers in advertising, marketing and PR
- YCEDE - Yorkshire Consortium for Equity in Doctoral Education supports access to doctoral study for UK-based graduates from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds. You can find the latest funding opportunities on their web page, as well as a series of events giving you an insight into life as a PhD student.
- Black Graduate Careers Conference, annually in June at Imperial College London is a hybrid event for Black undergraduates / recent graduates to discover career paths and the benefits of studying a postgraduate degree
- BME Early Career Researchers' conference, annual, location varies, showcases the success of BME researchers and provides networking opportunities and resources to support careers in academia
- Royal Society Career Development Fellowship, four-year postdoctoral research fellowship in STEM for researchers from Black heritage (applications open November for following year).
- Aspire events (Target Jobs) for Black heritage students (search Aspire)
- Black Young Professionals Network - events including careers webinars, networking and mentoring, jobs board
- SEO London - training and mentoring, careers support, programmes in finance, consulting, law, real estate.
- 10000 interns foundation - paid, six-week internships, with support from a mentor, in a range of sectors. Applications open in autumn for the following summer.
- Inclusive Top 50 UK Employers aims to identify leading employers who promote inclusion across all protected characteristics.
- York SU Societies
- Black access scheme - part-time work with the University's Access and Outreach team to support the Black Access programme. Applications open in October.
- Yorkshire Consortium for Equity in Doctoral Education, YCEDE, promotes access to doctoral studies for graduates from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds. They advertise PhD scholarships, and summer internships advertised in Handshake by York Internships.
- Undergraduates may be eligible for a York Futures Scholarship, providing financial support for employability-related activities
- Bright Network offers careers resources, a free e-learning platform (Academy), summer Internship Experience UK to give insights into a range of work sectors (and experience to include in your CV)
- Forage also offers free online courses. These are short (5-6 hour) programmes from leading companies designed to simulate real world experience; leading companies are involved from a range of sectors including law, accounting, finance, tech consulting, marketing and engineering. There is flexibility to complete the courses in your own time, and you can get a sense of the different companies in a given sector.
Talk to us if you want to discuss your career plans or talk through any issues related to the resources above.