Research Assistant Review

Overall, this placement experience has been brilliant. It has helped to introduce a working, real life understanding and application of some of the modules studied at university. I have worked alongside industry experts and have developed skills that will be useful in my future career. I would strongly recommend applying to the Bank of England industrial placement scheme.

The level of responsibility entrusted to you is an indication of how well you are valued by colleagues. As well as this, feedback from work completed helps reinforce that you are a valued team member. Time is taken to explain the significance of individual pieces of work to help put it into context.

Support and guidance from colleagues and supervisors, as well as other placement students, is very good. Although some independent research and intuition is expected, it is known that you are a very junior member of the team and as such colleagues are appreciative that technical business knowledge specific to the area is relatively thin.

Typical hours worked are 8:30 – 5:30. I was once required to work over a weekend during a particularly busy period, but was reimbursed accordingly. The workload is manageable and overtime is rewarded. Colleagues are very sympathetic towards workload and so tailor the amount of work given to me as appropriate. As well as this, because you are a member of a team, you can delegate aspects of your work to other colleagues if appropriate when workload is particularly large.

I have a good level of responsibility, both for business as usual tasks and also there is scope for spending time on projects that interest you. I was not expecting to be trusted with the amount of responsibility that I currently have. There are work streams that placement students have significant input into.

One of the best aspects of a placement at the Bank of England in my opinion is the training courses that are made available to you. You are encouraged to attend modules that would be useful to your day to day role, but additional training modules that may be useful to further studies are also available and the process for booking onto them is easy. This includes technical training, for example coding, that is a skill I have learned from scratch since my time here.

The general atmosphere was friendly and helpful. Although at some particularly busy times the atmosphere could get somewhat stressful, this was unusual. The office is a great working environment, conducive to work and equipped with all necessary facilities you would need. The intranet makes finding people / meeting rooms easy as well.

Before the placement had started, asking HR about start dates, divisions etc. was quite a slow process. Once the placement had started there was very little contact from the Early Careers team checking progress or keeping in contact. I, for example, had to correct HR a few times on which business area I am in, and I was told my manager would be someone different to who it actually is. Organisation within the business area specifically, however is brilliant.

As previously mentioned, the training offered by the Bank of England to its placement students is superb. I really feel like I have been invested in, and senior management are keen for you to pursue any training for interests not necessarily specifically work related, or modules that may be useful for future studies. The interface for booking / managing training is also excellent.

I have really enjoyed my placement and am currently in the process of applying to the Graduate Scheme offered by the Bank of England. The culture and support provided to younger colleagues are large components of this. As well as this, the size of the Bank of England and the range of responsibilities that it has means that there are a huge number of potential business areas to explore.

The number of placement students taken by the Bank of England mean that there is a really good community of placement students to socialise with, but also to speak to about specific business areas, since approaching other placement students is often times easier that approaching more senior colleagues. Having said that, colleagues in my team are also very sociable.

Central London. Very, very expensive.

Central London. Very, very good.

Being in London means that there are a huge amount of lectures, seminars, events, festivals etc. to get involved in.