Build skills you'll use in your career
Our graduate employment rates are among the UK's best, with 9 out of 10 of our students in work and/or further study (HESA Graduate Outcomes Survey, 2021/22). We're in the top 20% of all universities in England for graduate start-up activities (Knowledge Exchange Framework 2022).
That's thanks to our focus on work-related learning; our outstanding links with employers and professional bodies; the importance we place on getting our graduates relevant workplace experience while they're studying with us; and the ongoing support we give our graduates once their course is over.
Studying at Portsmouth really helped me prepare for my job, both technically but also generally in day-day working life.
Careers support
Our Careers and Employability Service will help you find part-time work, volunteering roles and graduate jobs during your studies and up to 5 years after you graduate.
Placement year degrees
Put your learning into practice and graduate with a year of experience in industry by taking a placement year.
Work experience opportunities
Whatever industry you're interested in, we can help you with work experience opportunities.
Volunteering opportunities
Interested in volunteering your time and skills? We can point you in the right direction.
Student startup advice
If you've got a passion for entrepreneurship and a great idea for a new business, we can help you get up and running.
Case study – Ollie Marsh
Find out how studying with us led Ollie Marsh into his dream career.
Ollie Marsh – from work placement to full time role at Portsmouth Football Club
Ollie Marsh, a graduate of our BA (Hons) Journalism degree, now works for Portsmouth Football Club in the media team. Find out how he achieved his dream: from doing a work placement at the club, to securing a full time position.
My name's Ollie Marsh, I studied Journalism at the University of Portsmouth and I now work at Portsmouth Football Club in the media team.
I've always felt that a club's media output has a big impact on the identity of the club, and certainly we bear in mind that everything we do relates to and contributes towards a brand. So there's a little bit more responsibility than it seems on the surface.
In the briefest possible terms, I look after all of the digital side of things for the club, so that includes their social media channels and their Youtube channel. I wasn't always interested in sports marketing. In fact when I started uni, I said that my goal was to become a local journalist and my dream was to work at a football club. So from my point of view, I'm hugely thankful that my dream has now come true. And definitely the course equipped us as well, because it gave us a really broad range of skills that can be applied to lots of different situations and it gave us a real insight into all areas of the media industry.
It was easy to secure a placement at Portsmouth Football Club but it wouldn't have been were it not for the university. The lecturers really go above and beyond to put you on the right path, get your foot in doors and it pays off because I'm here now. Having a placement here did build my confidence because it's such a difference having your work actually seen by an audience. It's all well and good handing in assessments and that can be fun, but when your work is actually seen by 100,000 people 0150 which is the audience that Portsmouth have on their social channels – it's such a buzz and it's fantastic to see all the engagement coming through and all the positive feedback.
I think there's definitely a parallel between the lecturers at university and the football manager. Obviously, football managers have usually had a career in the game and all of our lecturers had a career in journalism so you knew what they were talking about. And also, they could sometimes give us the hairdryer treatment if they needed to, to motivate us. And just generally they looked for the right tactics, the right game plan to get us all the results that we wanted and it's that level of commitment that we really appreciated. And certainly the university and the football club are both massive parts of the identity of the city, so I think it's an incredible thing that there's now a close link between them.
Gold rating in national assessment of teaching excellence
Our TEF Gold rating ranks Portsmouth amongst the top universities in the UK for teaching.