12 Month University Industrial Placement Student (UIPS): R&D, Biopharmaceutical and Oncology Review

Item: 12 Month University Industrial Placement Student (UIPS): R&D, Biopharmaceutical and Oncology at AstraZeneca
Rating: 4.4
Author: Anonymous

at AstraZeneca

Placement (10 Months+)

Chemistry, Pharmaceutical, Research, Science

Cambridge

Review Submitted: August 2026

Overall Rating

4.4 /5

The Overall Rating is the average of all the ratings given in each category. We take those individual ratings and combine them into one final score!

4/5 - Overview of Role

5/5 - Skills Development

5/5 - Support and Guidance

4.5/5 - Company Culture

4/5 - Overall Experience

2/5 - Future Career Prospects

Overview of Role

Please give an overview of your role and what this involves on a day-to-day basis.

Wet-lab based placement in Early Oncology, working across multiple teams to develop a platform which would benefit several projects. A mix of bench based experiments, desk based data analysis, and plenty of admin :)

Were you given much responsibility during your placement / internship?

Yes - lots of opportunity to be independent and take full responsibility for the project

Please rate how meaningful the work you were doing was

4/5

Skills Development

Have you learnt any new skills, or developed your existing skills?

Learnt a tonne of new technical skills, and absolutely developed 'soft skills' like working in a team, leadership, delegation, resilience, organisation, time management, presenting, networking, and many more.

How would you rate the training provided during your experience?

5/5

How would you rate your development of industry-specific skills during the experience?

5/5

How would you rate your development of personal / soft skills during the experience?

5/5

Please rate how these skills have helped you in your career development

5/5

Support and Guidance

How much support and guidance did you receive during your placement / internship?

I had loads of supportive supervision, and a lovely wider team, so I was consistently well supported and had guidance coming out of my ears.

How would you rate the support and guidance from your line manager?

5/5

How would you rate the support and guidance from the wider team?

5/5

Company Culture

What was the company culture and general atmosphere like?

Overall a positive atmosphere, the DISC is a very pleasant place to work. The culture was more corporate than I expected so that was an adjustment, but wasn't necessarily a negative and probably contributed to my development.

How would you rate the inclusiveness of the culture?

4/5

How would you rate the social opportunities?

5/5

How would you rate the diversity initiatives?

4/5

How would you rate the charity, sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives?

5/5

Overall Experience

To what extent did you enjoy your placement / internship?

Very much! It was hard work and I learned a lot about myself and my working habits, but was more enjoyable than not.

Please rate your level of enjoyment on your placement / internship

4/5

Please rate how your experience met your expectations

4/5

Recommendations & Advice

Would you recommend AstraZeneca to a friend?

Yes

What advice would you give to others applying to AstraZeneca

Start coming up with your own ideas to steer your project EARLY, whether this is particular skills you want to try your hand at or teams you want to work with, and do your absolute best to make it happen. Make use of the ERG structure and the UIPS network. Do not compare yourself or your work to your peers.