Summer Placement Test Systems Engineer

Your impact

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 summer 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.

We have created a programme across our UK sites that not only increases your technical skills, but gives you the opportunity to work on meaningful real‑life projects, alongside experienced engineers and graduates across our business.

You will receive coaching and support to achieve your personal goals and work in multidisciplinary teams to gain as much experience across the product lifecycle from your time in industry as possible. Our ultimate aim is to see you through your undergrad years and successful placements will result in an offer to return for further placements or for an offer on our Graduate Development programme.

The programme will run from 1st June 2026 to 28th August 2026.

Work on real engineering problems within either the Radar, Advanced Targeting or Support business areas. You will have the opportunity to be involved in supporting a wide range of tasks across multiple projects/products, such as

• Developing test solutions for
  • Captor radar for Typhoon fighter jet
  • Raven radar for SAAB Gripen fighter jet
  • Our family of Surveillance AESA (Active Electronically Scanned Array) radars
  • IRCM (Infra‑Red Counter Measures) systems
  • Laser target designator or laser ranging systems

Within the Test Systems Engineering community you will be given the opportunity to learn the skills required for hardware development, including developing practical skills in different practical environments and understanding of key technologies. You will deliver technical reports and presentations on your work assignments to your supervisor and fellow placement students.

Most of your learning will be delivered via on‑the‑job experience by working on hardware development programmes within live projects delivering complex test solutions to our customers. Additional formal technical training will be provided as required.

You will work with an experienced engineer who will provide day‑to‑day guidance and will be introduced to test hardware engineering processes, methods, technology and tools, with particular emphasis placed on learning practical skills that may not be easily gained or experienced in the academic environment of a university.

• Currently undertaking a minimum of a Bachelors level degree Electrical & Electronic Engineering (or similar field).
• Be a self‑motivated individual, willing to take on new challenges and drive continuous personal development.
• Strong communication skills across a variety of mediums i.e. written, verbal, digital, etc.
• The ability to develop effective working relationships with peers and stakeholders.
• Adaptable to the ever changing demands that will be encountered within the role.
• Offer novel ideas and methods for solving technical problems, drawing on personal experiences and knowledge learned during academic studies.
• Demonstrate relevant project work and/or placements in Industry are beneficial, but not essential.

All of our placements should be working towards (a) a minimum of an upper Second class Bachelors/Integrated Masters degree, or (b) a higher degree, such as an MSc or PhD. In all cases the subject should be Electrical & Electronic Engineering, or another relevant discipline.

All successful candidates must be returning to university after their Summer Placement, i.e. not in their final year.

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…