Graduate Consultant – Graduate Development Programme (September 2027)

Waterstons Limited; North East; On-site; GBP 26,000 - 36,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible holiday allowance

Annual leave minimum 30 days

EV car scheme (salary sacrifice)

Sponsored training

Private medical insurance

Enhanced family policies

Life assurance

Employee wellbeing initiatives

CSR opportunities

Dental scheme

Eye care support

Cycle to work

Job summary

Waterstons Limited is looking for ambitious graduates to join our Managed Services team through a 12-month development programme. You’ll work on the service desk, solving real problems face-to-face with clients and spending time onsite to understand their businesses.

After the first year you’ll have the opportunity to move into software, data, cyber, advisory, or continue in Managed Services, with support from a dedicated mentor and exposure to on‑site client projects across our Durham, Glasgow

Qualifications

• Graduate development programme with hands-on exposure to IT support and client-facing work.
• Mentored development with opportunities to specialise after the first year.

Responsibilities

• Managed IT Support: own issues end to end and fix them properly.
• Monitoring and Management: learn to spot performance issues for clients.
• Security Operations: help keep client infrastructures secure.
• IT Service Delivery: contribute to turning reactive IT into proactive value.

Job description

A bit about us

We’re problem solvers at heart. Sometimes the answer is technology, sometimes it is strategy, and sometimes it is a strong cup of tea and a bit of thoughtful conversation. Whatever it takes, we work it out with our clients.

We’re an IT consultancy that helps organisations get the best out of their technology. That means keeping them secure and keeping the bad guys out, making sure everything works and is easy to use, and doing smart things with data and software to give their business an edge. It is important work, and we care about doing it well and for the right reasons.

Life at Waterstons is friendly, flexible and built on trust. We hire people who are curious, thoughtful and good at getting to the heart of a problem. You get support, trust and room to grow in a place that still feels human. The unlimited holidays and private healthcare are a nice touch, although most people stay because it feels like the right place to do good work with good people.

Are you ready to shape your future?

We're on the lookout for our future superstars. We’ve realised that our brightest problem solvers often start in our most client facing roles. Many of our most senior people answered phones and helped clients face to face before going on to tackle our biggest client challenges and eventually sit on our board. We’ve designed our Graduate Development programme to capitalise on this.

We’re looking for those who are hungry for a challenge, those keen and willing to learn new things, to develop and adapt. We’re looking for curious souls and those excited by the prospect of solving intricate client problems.

In this role you'll start on in our Managed Services team for your first 12 months, primarily working as part of the service desk team building a solid foundation in IT and client-facing consulting skills for the rest of your career. You'll solve real problems face to face with clients. You’ll spend time onsite with them. You’ll get to understand their businesses and build connections.

At the end of the programme, you’ll have the opportunity to move into another department. As part of your application, you'll tell us which department interests you most: Software, Data, Cyber, Advisory, or continuing in Managed Services, and we'll do our best to match you to it. If you change your mind along the way we'll stay flexible.

First 12-months

In your day-to-day, you'll rotate through four technical functions on the service desk, gaining hands‑on experience across the full breadth of IT support:

• Managed IT Support: Clients reach you by phone or email with technical problems. We don't do tiers, so you'll own each issue end to end and fix it properly, not just patch it.

• Monitoring and Management: We look after thousands of devices, cloud platforms and the networks connecting them. You'll learn to spot and solve performance issues before they cause client downtime.

• Security Operations: We keep a close watch on our clients security as well. Make sure their infrastructure and data is safe. You’ll learn the tools and the systems behind this, and how to secure things when somethings not right

• IT Service Delivery: You'll help turn reactive, firefighting IT into something that adds real value: assessing risk, investigating issues, and presenting findings that drive improvement.

How we’ll support your development

We’ll give you an experienced mentor to support you throughout the programme.

We have a graduate development programme lead who will be with you throughout your graduate journey.

To enable you to gain experience across a breadth of skills and knowledge we’ll make sure you get exposure to things like on‑site working, business development and ensuring you have the opportunity to be regularly client facing.

Whatever skills or knowledge you need to learn and develop for your chosen specialism, we’ll help you to gain and build that knowledge.

This role is based in our Durham, Glasgow or London office.

How We Take Care of You

As well as offering a competitive salary, we have an attractive benefits package including:

• A healthy work life balance with flexible and agile working being the norm
• Flexible holiday allowance, with a minimum of 30 days a year
• EV car scheme (salary sacrifice)
• Room to grow with supported development opportunities and sponsored training
• Enhanced family policies
• If you ever need it, company sick pay and life assurance
• Supported wellbeing with regular initiatives, an employee assistance programme and private medical insurance
• Flexible benefits such as a dental scheme, eye care support, season ticket loan and cycle to work
• Opportunities to get involved in CSR