Software Engineer jobs in United Kingdom

Job Description:

Are you ready to make an impact and gain hands‑on experience working on real‑world projects from day one?

At Leonardo, we’re looking for Industrial Placement students who want to be part of something bigger—shaping innovation, advancing technology, and enhancing global safety.

Our placements are designed to help you apply your studies in a practical setting, develop your technical skills, and gain valuable insight into how our business operates.

Our Industrial Placement Programme offers you the chance to spend a year with us, working on meaningful projects alongside subject matter experts, within multidisciplinary teams, and across the product lifecycle. You’ll receive a salary of £25,000, with coaching and support from a dedicated team to help you achieve both your placement objectives and personal development goals.

On our programme, you will engage with challenging and exciting project work, and deliver innovative business or technical solutions as part of a team of subject matter experts. Throughout the programme, you will receive coaching and support from your team to achieve your objectives as well as your personal development goals. You will gain a wide array of experience on your placement that you can apply to your academic studies and future career. There may be the possibility to continue to collaborate with Leonardo during your final year(s).

Successful completion of an Industrial Placement with Leonardo may also lead to an offer on our Graduate Development Programme.

We are looking for highly motivated individuals who are willing to take on a challenge to fill our industrial placement roles, and we will demand a high degree of customer focus and work performance from you in order to meet our operational challenges. If you are willing able to commit to giving your best performance, you will find Leonardo a very rewarding place to work!

• Report to an experienced engineer who will provide day‑to‑day guidance and on‑the‑job training. You will be introduced to the software development processes and utilise state‑of‑the‑art methods, technology and tools. You will also gain experience on one or more aspects of the software development lifecycle, which could include applied research, requirements analysis, design, implementation, integration, and test.
• Be responsible for creating high quality and robust code, for fully documenting and recording your work products, keeping them under configuration management and providing plans and reports on progress to your supervisor.
• Deliver technical reports and presentations on your work assignments to your supervisor and fellow placement students and be given assistance to deliver plans and reports to the required academic standard of your university.
• Learn the skills required for software development. This could include developing practical skills in design techniques for aerospace applications, understanding of key processes and technologies, developing software using state‑of‑the‑art modelling tools, compilers and test environments.
• Your task may involve working closely with Software, Systems, Firmware and Electronics Engineers to solve real integration problems on a complex system.
• An opportunity to showcase what you have learned and achieved during your placement to the Head of Software and the wider team.

All of our Placement roles require that you are working towards a relevant degree discipline e.g. Software Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, Mathematics or Electronic Engineering (BSc (Hon) / BEng (Hon) / MEng).

We would like to hear from you if you have a combination of the following:

• Experience of computer programming and be enthusiastic and passionate about designing software and writing code.
• Experience of an object‑oriented programming language such as C++ and knowledge of UML (Unified Modelling Language) is an advantage but not essential.

A full statement of courses and projects studied at university and corresponding grades/marks/percentage should be included in your CV.

This role is subject to pre‑employment screening in line with the UK Government’s Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS). An additional range of Personnel Security Controls referred to as National Security Vetting (NSV) may apply, this could include meeting the eligibility requirements for The Security Check (SC) or Developed Vetting (DV). For more information and guidance please visit: https://careers.uk.leonardo.com/gb/en/security-and-vetting

At Leonardo, our people are at the heart of everything we do, our teams are key contributors in shaping innovation, advancing technology, and enhancing global safety.

We offer a comprehensive, company‑funded benefits package that supports your wellbeing, career development, and work–life balance. Whether you're looking to grow professionally, care for your health, or plan for the future, we’re here to help you thrive.

• Time to recharge: Enjoy generous leave with the opportunity to accrue up to 12 additional flexi‑days each year.
• Secure your future: Benefit from our award‑winning pension scheme with up to 15% employer contribution.
• Your wellbeing matters: Free access to mental health support, financial advice, and employee‑led networks championing inclusion and diversity (Enable, Pride, Equalise, Armed Forces, Carers, Wellbeing and Ethnicity).
• Rewarding performance: All employees are eligible for our bonus scheme.
• Join in our success: Our Employee Stock Ownership Plan provides you the opportunity to own shares in Leonardo.
• Tailored perks: Spend up to £500 annually on flexible benefits including private healthcare, dental, family cover, tech & lifestyle discounts, gym memberships and more.

For a full list of our company benefits please visit: https://careers.uk.leonardo.com/gb/en/company-benefits.

We are committed to building an inclusive, accessible, and welcoming workplace. We believe that a diverse workforce sparks creativity, drives innovation, and leads to better outcomes for our people, communities and our customers. If you have any accessibility requirements to support you during the recruitment process, just let us know.

Be part of something bigger - apply now!

Primary Location: GB - Edinburgh

Contract Type: Fixed term

Hybrid Working: Onsite