60 Work Experience Ideas for Year 10 and Year 11 Students

Most work experience weeks are decided in a panic. A form comes home in February. Nobody has a plan. So the student ends up filing paper at a family friend's office, and the whole week teaches them one thing: offices are boring.

It doesn't have to go that way. The right placement at 15 can settle a subject choice, kill off a career idea before it costs three years, or hand your child the one story they tell in every interview for the next decade.

This guide gives you 60 real work experience ideas, sorted by the career each one points at. It also covers the bit most lists skip — the age rules, what a 14-year-old is actually allowed to do, and what to do when nobody replies to your emails.

Quick answer: The best work experience ideas for Year 10 and Year 11 students are placements where you do a real task, not just watch. Strong options include community pharmacies, primary school classrooms, engineering workshops, local newspapers, vet practices, care homes, small businesses and council offices. Most UK students are 14–16 during placement, so hospitals usually cap clinical work at 16+ and industrial sites are restricted. Free virtual programmes fill the gap when in-person options fall through.

What "work experience" actually means in Year 10 and Year 11

Work experience is a short placement where a student spends time inside a real workplace, usually one week, arranged through school or by the family.

It is not a job. In most cases it's unpaid, and that's legal — school-arranged work experience sits outside normal child employment rules. It's also not the same as a Saturday job, though a Saturday job can teach you just as much.

In England, schools follow the Gatsby Benchmarks for careers education. Benchmark 6 says every student should have meaningful experiences of workplaces by age 16, and at least one more by 18. "Meaningful" has a specific definition. It means the student gets a real task, meets several people, gets feedback on their work, and reflects on it afterwards. Watching someone type for five days doesn't count.

There's also a bigger change coming. The UK government has announced a Work Experience Guarantee — an ambition that every young person gets two weeks' worth of work experience across their school years. The plan splits it into five days across Years 7–9 and five days across Years 10–11. But as of the Careers & Enterprise Company's July 2025 guidance, this is still a government ambition, not settled policy. Don't assume your school has it running yet.

Why it matters more than it looks

A one-week placement does two jobs at once.

It tests a career idea cheaply. A week in a vet practice cleaning kennels has stopped more students becoming vets than any careers talk ever has — and that's a good outcome, not a failure.

It also builds the story. Personal statements, sixth form interviews and apprenticeship applications all ask for evidence. "I want to be an engineer" is worth nothing. "I spent a week at a bearing manufacturer and watched a production line stop over a 0.2mm tolerance" is worth a lot.

Gatsby's own research found young people who had multi-day workplace experiences tend to earn higher wages later in full-time work.

The rules: how old you have to be, and what you're allowed to do

In the UK, children can work part-time from age 14, and from 13 in some council areas. School-arranged work experience is treated differently from a paid job.

This trips up a lot of families, so here's the split.

If it's a school placement: no work permit is needed. The school handles the paperwork, checks the employer, and usually visits any medium or high-risk site first. Under the Health and Safety (Training for Employment) Regulations 1990, the student is treated as an employee for health and safety purposes. That means the employer's existing employers' liability insurance covers them, as long as their insurer is a member of the Association of British Insurers or Lloyd's. Most employers don't know this and turn students away because they think they need special cover. They usually don't.

If it's a paid job: the child needs a work permit from the local council's education department. It's illegal to employ a 13–16-year-old without one, even for voluntary work in some council areas.

Legal working hours for under-16s in the UK

These limits apply to paid work, not school placements.

Other rules apply at every age. No work during school hours. Nothing before 7am or after 7pm. A one-hour break after four hours. Sundays are capped at two hours. And every child must get a two-week break from work during the school holidays each calendar year.

Places that will say no, and why

Some doors are shut for legal reasons, not because your child isn't good enough.

• Hospitals and clinical settings. Most NHS trusts set 16 as the minimum for face-to-face clinical placements, because of insurance. Non-clinical departments — admin, IT, medical records, catering — often take students at 14 or 15. Operating theatres and emergency departments usually need 18.

• Factories and industrial sites. Children can't work in a factory or on an industrial site, though work experience is a specific exception in the regulations. Individual employers still often refuse.

• Anything with heavy machinery, chemicals or driving. Expect a no, or a heavily supervised observation day instead.

The fix is almost always the same: ask for the non-clinical, non-industrial version of the same workplace. A hospital says no to a ward. It may say yes to the pharmacy department or the pathology lab reception.

How to pick an idea that's actually worth the week

Before you chase a placement, run it through three quick tests.

Test 1: Will they be given a task? If the answer is "she can sit in and watch", that's a shadowing day, not a week. Shadowing is fine for one day. Five days of it is a waste. Ask the employer directly: "Is there a small piece of work she could complete and hand back?"

Test 2: Will they meet more than one person? The value is in seeing a workplace as a system. Ten minutes each with the receptionist, the technician and the manager beats five days with one person.

Test 3: Does it test a real question? The best placements answer something. Do I actually like being around sick people? Can I stand an office? Is coding fun when someone else picks the problem? Pick the placement that answers your child's biggest question, not the one that looks best on paper.

A student who genuinely wants medicine and gets a care home placement has learned more than one who got a hospital placement and stood in a corner.

60 work experience ideas, sorted by the career they point at

Here are the ideas. Each one says what your child would actually do, and how hard it usually is to get.

Healthcare, medicine and veterinary (ideas 1–8)

1. Community pharmacy. Stock rotation, prescription filing, watching consultations from the counter. One of the easiest healthcare placements to get and one of the most useful — pharmacists explain drugs better than anyone.

2. Care home activity assistant. Running bingo, serving tea, talking to residents. Hard emotionally, easy to arrange. This is the placement medical schools value most, and almost nobody asks for it.

3. Veterinary practice. Kennel cleaning, reception, holding animals during routine checks. Very competitive. Apply in November for a summer week.

4. Dental practice. Reception, sterilisation room, observing check-ups. Practices are small, so a polite phone call often works better than an email.

5. Optician's practice. Front of house, frame displays, watching eye tests. Widely available on the high street and rarely asked for.

6. Physiotherapy or sports injury clinic. Setting up rooms, observing rehab sessions. Great for students weighing up sports science against medicine.

7. St John Ambulance or first aid cadets. Not a placement exactly, but a real qualification plus event duties. Runs all year, so it fills gaps.

8. Hospital non-clinical department. Medical records, IT, portering, catering, pharmacy stores. This is the legal way into a hospital under 16, and it teaches how the system actually runs.

Engineering, technology and computing (ideas 9–16)

9. Local engineering or manufacturing firm. Usually a mix of shop-floor observation and a design or measurement task. Small firms say yes far more often than big ones.

10. Car garage or auto workshop. Diagnostics, tyre changes, parts ordering. Hands-on and genuinely popular with students who hate classrooms.

11. Architecture practice. Model making, site photography, drawing up a small elevation. Ask for a "studio week" rather than a site visit.

12. IT support desk. Ticket triage, device setup, cable management. Your own school's IT technician is the easiest yes in this whole list.

13. Construction site visit day. Full-week placements are rare for under-16s. A supervised single day with a site manager is realistic and eye-opening.

14. Web or app design agency. Wireframes, testing, competitor research. Small agencies love a fresh pair of eyes on their user testing.

15. Rail, water or energy company insight day. Most large infrastructure firms run structured schemes with proper safety briefings. Search the company name plus "work experience".

16. STEM ambassador at a primary school. Running a science club or robotics session for younger children. Teaches you a subject twice as well as revising it.

Business, finance and law (ideas 17–25)

17. A small local business, done properly. Not filing. Ask the owner for one real problem — stock counts, a customer survey, a social media audit — and hand back a result on Friday.

18. Estate agency. Viewings, property listings, measuring rooms. Easy to arrange and surprisingly good training in talking to adults.

19. Accountancy practice. Data entry, invoice matching, watching a client meeting. Best in January to March if you want to see real pressure.

20. Solicitor's office. File preparation, client reception, watching a completion. High street firms are far more open than city firms.

21. Court public gallery. Free, needs no permission, and most criminal courts are open to the public. Sit in for a morning, take notes, write it up. It costs nothing and beats a lot of arranged placements.

22. Bank branch. Customer service, fraud awareness, account processes. Many banks now push students to their online programmes instead.

23. Retail store. Stockroom, shop floor, till training. Underrated. Retail teaches customer handling, and every interviewer respects it.

24. Marketing or PR agency. Content planning, competitor research, a small campaign brief. Ask to present your work on the last day.

25. Charity fundraising office. Donor letters, event planning, campaign data. Charities are short-staffed and usually welcoming.

If business is the direction your child is leaning, it's worth checking how the subject works at school level too — our IGCSE Business Studies tutors see a lot of students who discover the subject through a placement like this.

Science, research and the environment (ideas 26–32)

26. University lab or outreach placement. Many universities run structured week-long schemes for Year 10 and 11. Applications usually open in January.

27. Museum or science centre. Explaining exhibits to visiting families, helping with workshops. Excellent for confidence.

28. Conservation or environmental charity. Habitat surveys, planting, species counts. Physical, outdoors, and produces real data you can write about.

29. Wildlife trust or nature reserve. Visitor centre work plus field tasks. Good alternative when vet placements fall through.

30. Council environmental health team. Food hygiene inspections, water sampling, noise monitoring. Almost nobody asks for this, so councils often say yes.

31. Zoo or aquarium. Food prep, enclosure cleaning, keeper talks. Competitive and often has its own age minimum, so check first.

32. Bakery or food production unit. Quality control, hygiene procedure, batch testing. A real introduction to food science and process control.

Media, design and the arts (ideas 33–40)

33. Local newspaper or news website. Writing a short piece, fact-checking, attending a council meeting. Ask to be given a byline — many will.

34. Community or hospital radio station. Scripting, editing, running a desk. Small stations are almost always volunteer-run and short of hands.

35. Photography studio. Lighting setup, editing, shoot assisting. Bring your own portfolio, even if it's phone photos.

36. Freelance graphic designer. Often a home studio, so the school may need extra checks. Worth it — you see a whole project end to end.

37. Theatre. Backstage, box office, get-in and get-out days. Ask about the technical side, not just acting.

38. Cinema. Projection, front of house, scheduling. More technical than people expect.

39. Library. Cataloguing, running children's reading hours, displays. Reliable, and always says yes.

40. Podcast or video production. Recording, editing, publishing. Realistic to arrange with a local creator or a small agency.

Teaching, psychology and working with people (ideas 41–47)

41. Primary school classroom. Reading with children, preparing resources, supporting group work. The single most common placement, and still one of the best.

42. Nursery or early years setting. Play supervision, snack time, story reading. Check the setting's own age policy first — many require 16.

43. Sports coaching at a holiday camp. Assisting sessions, refereeing, equipment. Often leads to a paid job at 16.

44. Youth club. Activity support, running a session. Good for students considering social work or youth work.

45. Special school or SEND setting. Classroom support with training. Demanding, deeply valuable, and strong evidence for anyone heading toward medicine, teaching or psychology.

46. Language school. Conversation practice with adult learners, admin. Brilliant for bilingual students.

47. Scouts, Guides or Cadets young leader. A recognised role with training, spread over months rather than one week.

Trades, hospitality and hands-on work (ideas 48–53)

48. Café or restaurant kitchen. Prep, service, cleaning down. Fast, loud, and the best test of whether someone can work under pressure.

49. Hotel. Front desk, housekeeping, events setup. Big hotels have proper structures for placements.

50. Hairdresser or barber. Reception, shampooing, watching cuts. Small salons are usually happy to take someone for a week.

51. Florist. Conditioning flowers, arrangements, deliveries. Peaks around Valentine's Day and Mother's Day, so timing matters.

52. Farm or garden centre. Animal care, planting, stock. Seasonal, physical, and a genuine change of scene.

53. Bike shop or repair workshop. Servicing, wheel building, parts. Mechanical skills with a very short learning curve.

When nothing else works (ideas 54–60)

These are the fallbacks. They're not second best — several are better than a weak in-person placement.

54. A free virtual work experience programme. See the honest breakdown in the next section.

55. Run a micro-business for the week. Design, price, market and sell something real. Keep the accounts. It's harder than a placement and produces better interview material.

56. Deliver a real project for a local charity. Rebuild their website, run a donation drive, write their newsletter. Agree the brief on Monday, present the result on Friday.

57. Shadow a relative properly. The difference between useful and useless here is a task. Your child should be given something to produce, and someone other than the relative should give feedback.

58. Local council or MP's constituency office. Casework observation, correspondence, community projects. Free and often available.

59. Interview five people doing a job you want. Twenty minutes each, same questions, write it up as a report. Cheap, entirely in your control, and genuinely impressive.

60. A school-based placement. The office, the IT technician, the librarian, the site team, the finance officer. Every school is a workplace with real jobs in it. The answer is nearly always yes.

Virtual work experience: what's real and what's filler

Virtual work experience is a structured online programme where students complete tasks set by a real employer, usually over a few hours or days.

It's genuinely useful when in-person options fall through, and Gatsby's Benchmark 6 definition explicitly allows for a mix of in-person and virtual experiences. But quality varies a lot. Some programmes are proper simulations with employer feedback. Others are a video playlist with a certificate at the end.

The honest verdict: one virtual programme plus one real in-person week beats three virtual certificates. Admissions tutors and employers can tell the difference between someone who watched videos and someone who turned up somewhere at 8:30am for five days.

For medicine specifically, the Medical Schools Council is clear about this. Shadowing a doctor is helpful but not essential. Retail, hospitality and community volunteering all count as long as the student reflects on what they learned. The Council also says a weekend job absolutely counts. What matters is the reflection, not the setting.

What to do if nobody replies

Most families email ten places, hear nothing, and conclude that work experience is impossible. It usually isn't. It's an approach problem.

Phone instead of email. Small businesses don't read their inbox. A polite call at 10am on a Tuesday gets further than twenty emails.

Ask for a person, not a placement. "Can I speak to whoever handles work experience?" gets forwarded. "Do you offer work experience?" gets a no.

Make it easy to say yes. Give exact dates, confirm the school handles insurance and paperwork, and ask for one week only.

Say what you'll bring. Even at 15, your child can offer something. Social media, spreadsheets, a language, a willingness to do the dull jobs nobody wants.

An email that actually gets replies

Subject: Work experience request — Year 10 student, w/c 23 June

Dear Ms Patel,

I'm a Year 10 student at Northbrook School and I'm hoping to spend one week with your practice from 23 to 27 June.

I'm interested in veterinary medicine and I'd like to understand what the job is really like day to day — including the parts people don't talk about. I'm happy to do any task, including cleaning and reception work.

My school arranges the insurance and the health and safety paperwork, so there's nothing for you to organise. My teacher, Mr Adeyemi, can confirm this on 01xxx xxx xxx.

If a full week isn't possible, even a single day would be very welcome.

Thank you for your time,

Aisha Rahman

Year 10, Northbrook School

Three things make that email work. It names a specific person. It gives specific dates. And it removes the employer's biggest objection — paperwork — before they raise it.

Send fifteen of these. Expect three replies and one yes. That's a normal hit rate, and it's not personal.

How to turn one week into something that counts later

The week itself is only half the value. The other half is what your child does with it.

Keep a daily log. Five minutes each evening. What did I do, who did I meet, what surprised me, what did I hate. Memory fades fast, and the specific details are what make a personal statement good.

Get one piece of feedback in writing. An email from the supervisor saying what the student did well. It takes them two minutes and it's worth a lot in six months.

Name a real moment. Not "I learned about teamwork." Instead: "On Wednesday a customer complained and I watched the manager solve it without agreeing she was right." Specific beats general every time.

Ask the awkward question. "What's the worst part of this job?" Nearly everyone answers honestly, and that answer is more useful than everything else combined.

If your child is heading into the IB

For students moving from IGCSE into the IB Diploma, work experience links directly to CAS — Creativity, Activity, Service, the core strand every IB student completes alongside their subjects. A placement doesn't automatically count as CAS, because CAS needs a sustained commitment and mapped learning outcomes. But it very often starts one. A week at a care home turns into a monthly volunteering slot. A week coaching turns into a season.

If that's the route ahead, our guide to CAS and how it works explains what does and doesn't count, and the IGCSE to IB transition guide covers what changes in the jump from Year 11 to Year 12.

Work experience ideas for international school students

If your child is at an international school outside the UK, the picture changes in three ways.

Your school may not run a work experience week at all. Many international schools don't, or they run a short "career day" instead. That means the family arranges it. Start earlier — six months is not too early.

Local labour law applies, not UK law. Minimum ages and permit rules vary by country. This is the single most common mistake families make when arranging a placement abroad.

Always check the current rules with the local ministry of labour or your school's careers office before agreeing anything. Rules change, and this table is a starting point rather than legal advice.

Unpaid placements are usually simpler than paid ones. In most countries, a short unpaid, school-endorsed observation placement sits under lighter rules than paid employment.

Use the parent network. International schools sit inside expat business communities, and that's an advantage. Parents in the school community run law firms, clinics, logistics companies and construction projects. A parent network usually produces better placements than cold emailing ever will. Ask the school to circulate a request.

Mistakes to avoid

Leaving it to March. The good placements — hospitals, university labs, vets, engineering firms — take applications six months out. February is late.

Choosing prestige over access. A week at a household-name company where your child sits in a corner is worth less than a week at a two-person business where they run something.

Treating it as a holiday. The workplace forms an opinion on Monday morning and rarely revises it.

Forgetting that grades still decide the next step. Work experience shapes direction. Results open doors. A brilliant placement week doesn't rescue a weak set of IGCSE grades, and Year 10 and 11 are exactly when the gaps start to matter. If subject choice is the real question underneath all this, our complete list of IGCSE subjects sets out what's available and how the groups fit together. If it's the grades themselves, that's what our IGCSE tutors work on.

Skipping the thank-you email. One paragraph on the Monday after. It's the difference between a contact and a stranger, and contacts are how second placements and first jobs happen.

Frequently asked questions

What are the best work experience ideas for a 15-year-old?

The strongest options for a 15-year-old are placements where they'll be given real tasks: community pharmacies, primary school classrooms, retail, cafés, local newspapers, small engineering firms, libraries, vet practices and council offices. Clinical hospital placements are usually restricted to 16 and over because of insurance, but non-clinical hospital departments like admin, IT and medical records often accept 14 and 15-year-olds.

Pick based on the question your child most wants answered, not on which employer name sounds most impressive.

How old do you have to be to do work experience in the UK?

There's no single legal minimum age for school-arranged work experience — schools typically place students in Years 10 and 11, so ages 14 to 16. For paid work, the minimum age is 14 in most of the UK, and 13 in some council areas, with a work permit from the local council required.

Individual employers set their own age limits on top of this. NHS trusts commonly require 16 for clinical placements and 18 for operating theatres and emergency departments.

Does work experience have to be paid?

No. Work experience placements arranged through a school are normally unpaid, and that's entirely legal. The student isn't classed as a worker for pay purposes.

If a young person is doing an actual job rather than a placement, different rules apply, and they'll need a work permit from the local council.

Do employers need special insurance to take a work experience student?

Usually not. Under the Health and Safety (Training for Employment) Regulations 1990, a student on work experience is treated as an employee for health and safety purposes. Existing employers' liability insurance covers them, provided the insurer is a member of the Association of British Insurers or Lloyd's.

Many employers turn students away because they wrongly believe they need extra cover. Mentioning this politely in your first email removes the objection before it comes up.

How many hours can a 14 or 15-year-old work?

For paid work in the UK during term time, both 14 and 15-year-olds are limited to 12 hours a week, with a maximum of 2 hours on school days and Sundays. On Saturdays, 14-year-olds can work up to 5 hours and 15 to 16-year-olds up to 8 hours.

In school holidays, 14-year-olds can work up to 25 hours a week and 15 to 16-year-olds up to 35 hours. No child may work before 7am or after 7pm, and everyone needs a two-week work-free break during the holidays each year.

Is virtual work experience worth doing?

Yes, as a supplement. The Gatsby Benchmark 6 definition of a meaningful workplace experience allows for a mix of in-person and virtual, and free programmes from Springpod, Barclays LifeSkills and Forage give students access to employers they could never reach in person.

The limit is that virtual programmes rarely involve real responsibility. One virtual programme plus one real in-person week is a much stronger combination than several virtual certificates alone.

What work experience do I need for medicine?

The Medical Schools Council says two types of experience are useful: a caring or service role, and observing healthcare — which can be done online. Both paid and unpaid roles count.

Shadowing a doctor is helpful but not essential, and experience doesn't have to be in a clinical setting. Retail, hospitality and community volunteering all count. A weekend job counts too. What medical schools assess is how well the applicant reflects on what they learned, not where they were.

What if I can't get any work experience placement?

Build your own. Run a small business for a week and keep proper accounts. Deliver a real project for a local charity with an agreed brief. Interview five people doing the job you want and write it up. Sit in a court's public gallery, which is free and needs no permission.

Then add a free virtual programme on top. A student who organises their own week and produces something to show is often more impressive than one who was handed a placement.

When should we start looking for a placement?

Six months before the placement week. Hospitals, university schemes, vet practices and large engineering firms often open applications in the autumn for the following summer.

For local businesses, six to eight weeks is usually enough. If the school hasn't sent a form by February for a June placement, start ringing round yourself.

Does work experience count towards IB CAS?

Not automatically. CAS — Creativity, Activity, Service — requires a sustained commitment with mapped learning outcomes and proper reflection, not a single week of observation.

That said, a placement very often starts a CAS activity. A week at a care home can turn into monthly volunteering. A week coaching can become a full season. If your child is moving into the IB Diploma, treat the placement as a way to find the CAS commitment rather than as the commitment itself.

Is a Saturday job better than a week of work experience?

They do different things. A Saturday job builds reliability and customer skills over months, and employers and admissions tutors respect it. A one-week placement tests a specific career idea in depth.

If your child already has a part-time job, use the work experience week for something they couldn't otherwise access — a lab, a courtroom, a design studio.

The short version

Work experience is worth real effort, but not for the reason most people think. It rarely gets anyone a job. What it does is narrow the field — before a subject or degree choice makes that decision expensive.

Pick the placement that answers the biggest open question. Push for a real task. Write it down while it's fresh. And if the first fifteen emails go nowhere, build something yourself.

Educifly's tutors work with IB and IGCSE students in over a dozen countries, and we see the same pattern every year: the students who plan Year 10 well are the ones with options in Year 12. If the grades underneath the plan need attention, book a free trial class and we'll tell you honestly where things stand.

Written by the Educifly team. Educifly Infinity LLP has provided 1-on-1 IB and IGCSE tutoring since 2018.