The Psychology Employability Programme (PEP) is an extracurricular scheme that facilitates voluntary work experience that is psychology-relevant. The Psychology Employability Programme offers you the chance to gain relevant work experience that is necessary to progress along training pathways in professional psychology, such as clinical, forensic, educational or research.

You can choose to work in the community with charities and organisations, or alongside research staff in the Psychology Department on their projects. Crucially, every placement will provide you with experience and both specific and transferrable skills that are valuable to careers in psychology, thus strengthening your CV and enhancing your employability.

How the scheme works

Work for placements will be conducted in your free time while you are studying at Lancaster. The positions are not restricted by your year of study and all roles are unpaid, meaning there is no economic inequality. All placements are based in Lancaster or the surrounding area, so no-one will be disadvantaged by geographic location. This makes the Psychology Employability Programme fully inclusive.

Every Psychology student (both undergraduate and postgraduate) at Lancaster University can apply for placements each year, although the number of positions is limited. Note that you can only apply for 3 placements in a single academic year. The number of required working hours for each internship will be advertised so you can make an informed decision about how it would fit into your schedule before applying. Every PEP placement will require at least 20 hours in total over the academic year. You can only hold 2 placements at once. There is no overall limit on the number of placements you can complete during your degree.

The researchers and organisations that offer placements through PEP vary every year and you can learn more about community placements here.

Benefits of voluntary placements

• Gain experience that will help you along a pathway in professional psychology
• Enhance your employability
• Put yourself in a strong position for prestigious postgraduate training courses whose selection committees value voluntary work
• Become better informed about the suitability of different career paths in psychology
• The scheme can contribute to the
• Engagement with PEP scheme will be acknowledged on your official learning log subject to submitting a reflective report

Examples of previous placements

Some of the organisations we have offered placements with, and example roles:

Placement can be offered at any time of any term in the academic year, so check the current offerings regularly to find the best fit for your interests.

To view the current placements and to apply, visit: