Placement service wins top award for the second year running

Coventry University’s efforts to boost its students’ career prospects have once again gained national recognition.

EC Futures, which focuses on finding top quality industrial placements for the University’s engineering, environment and computing students, has been named ‘Best University Placement Service UK’ at the 2016 National Undergraduate Employability (NUE) awards. 

Now in their seventh year, the industry-sponsored NUE awards which took place on Friday 12th February in London, celebrate the efforts universities, employers and students put in to making work experience opportunities a rewarding experience for all.

It’s the third year in a row that the EC Futures team has been nominated for best university placement and the second year running that they have won the title. 

Finishing first in a field of 30 nominations, EC Futures received the award for its work embedding employability into academic modules and for its continued success in placing students into industrial placements.  The award judges were particularly impressed that the team placed 311 students in paid yearlong technical roles over the last 12 months. 

The EC Futures team picked up their award from entrepreneurs Aimee Bateman from online platform ‘Career Cake’ and former ‘Dragons Den’ contestant Levi Roots. 

As well as wining the best university placement category, EC futures also sponsored the ‘Top small to medium sized undergraduate employer’ award for SMEs that are positive towards work experience opportunities for students. 

Harminder Kaur, acting team leader at EC Futures, said: 

We’re delighted to have won the Best University Placement Service award for the second year running. Once again we were up against some really tough competition from across the UK but it’s testimony to the hard work of everyone involved in EC Futures that we managed to come out on top again. The award is doubly pleasing as it’s our students who are benefitting from this as we continue to secure them valuable work placements.

We are particularly happy to have received recognition for the embedded employability in the curriculum, again something that really sets this university apart with an emphasis on activity led learning.

For further information please contact Rhys Lewis in the University's Marketing and Communications team.