Data Analyst Year in industry student Review

Item: Data Analyst Year in industry student at Network Rail
Rating: 3.8
Author: Anonymous

at Network Rail

Placement (10 Months+)

Data Analysis, Information Technology

York

Review Submitted: August 2026

Overall Rating

3.8 /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!

3/5 - Overview of Role

3.8/5 - Skills Development

3.5/5 - Support and Guidance

4.5/5 - Company Culture

3.5/5 - Overall Experience

3/5 - Future Career Prospects

Overview of Role

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

My role is in the maintenance and efficiencies department for the North and East region of Network Rail. My main responsibilities are managing my own large projects that run the whole year and many smaller tasks and projects that may last a week to a month, working with and supporting my line manager in his projects and doing data processing for them. My average day consists of working with other discipline teams to further progress my projects and working on code or GIS systems to create new applications.

Were you given much responsibility during your placement / internship?

I was given a large amount of responsibility during my placement I was solely responsible for my projects and often led meetings myself whilst also given presentations to show updates to other teams of my projects.

Please rate how meaningful the work you were doing was

3/5

Skills Development

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

Mainly Geospatial mapping tools for geo analyses.

How would you rate the training provided during your experience?

3/5

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

3/5

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

4/5

Support and Guidance

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

I had one to one meetings with my line manager although they were often extremely busy so these started to happen more rarely towards the end of my placement and they were shorter and more brief as the placement progressed, I would have liked more support on my projects at times as i may reach out or ask and only get brief guidelines of where to go next but not much direct support.

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

3/5

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

4/5

Company Culture

What was the company culture and general atmosphere like?

Very friendly every team I met were very happy to help and answer my questions. Although Network Rail as a whole is an incredibly badly run organisation with huge amounts of waste both time and skills with enough red tape for massive cost savings simply made not feasible. Which can make for a frustrating workplace at times.

How would you rate the inclusiveness of the culture?

5/5

How would you rate the social opportunities?

3/5

How would you rate the diversity initiatives?

5/5

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?

I did enjoy it and gained a lot from it both future connections and opportunities I just don't think Network Rail has the business support for my role yet and would rather consult it to more expensive options.

Please rate your level of enjoyment on your placement / internship

4/5

Please rate how your experience met your expectations

3/5

Recommendations & Advice

Would you recommend Network Rail to a friend?

Yes

What advice would you give to others applying to Network Rail

Network Rail mainly focuses on a single CV so ensure that your CV is perfectly presented to who you are and ensure you talk about personal experience and projects to stand out.