The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) manages the UK’s membership of CERN. The following advice has been put together by STFC to help UK school students who are interested in undertaking a work experience placement at CERN.
CERN does not have an official, advertised work experience programme for school students. However, lots of students come to CERN for work experience every year.
Who can apply
Work experience placements are open to all students. You do not need to be from the local area or have existing connections to CERN.
How to apply
We recommend you identify technicians, engineers or physicists who are working on projects in your area of interest and contact them. Visit the CERN Directory for help finding details.
In your letter or email, be clear about what area you’re interested in, for example:
- accelerator physics
- experimental physics
- scientific computing
- engineering
Ensure you address your letter to a specific person so that the internal mail service will know where to deliver it.
Do your research and make sure you know what’s new at CERN by following the organisation and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments on social media. Read blogs and websites such as:
The Cylindrical Onion: blogging about the CMS experiment
If you’re going to university
If you plan to go to university and you’ve already thought about which one you want to apply to, find out if they are part of any CERN experiments by checking the list of UK institutes on the CERN Greybook.
It will look good on your UCAS application if you’ve already met people from the university’s physics, computing or engineering department and you know about one of its projects.
If you get offered a placement
Make sure you return all the paperwork promptly.
You will have to meet all your own travel and subsistence costs. There is no funding available from either CERN or STFC. You’ll also have to find your own accommodation during your placement.
CERN has a useful list of hotels (including information about whether or not the hotel offers a shuttle to CERN). If your school has a network of former students, check whether any of them live in Geneva and would be willing to accommodate a current student.
If you are aged 18 or under, you will need to have a parent or other responsible adult in and around CERN throughout your placement. They won’t be with you during the day when you’re with CERN staff, but CERN will not accept responsibility for you outside work hours.
CERN is located on the French-Swiss border, so you’ll need to check what local currency you need depending on where you are working or staying. Both of CERN’s main sites have banks and cash machines.
Last updated: 31 July 2025