Chemical Engineering Placement Student

Cargills size and scale allows us to make a positive impact in the world. Our purpose is to nourish the world in a safe responsible and sustainable way.

Cargill is a family company providing food ingredients agricultural solutions and industrial products that are vital for living. We connect farmers with markets so they can prosper. We connect customers with ingredients so they can make meals people love. And we connect families with daily essentials from eggs to edible oils salt to skincare feed to alternative fuel. Our 160000 colleagues operating in 70 countries make essential products that touch billions of lives each day.

Join us and reach your higher purpose at Cargill.

This position is in Cargills food and bioindustrialbusiness where manufacturers retailers and food service companies rely on us to consistently deliver the products and services they need and use our technical expertise and market knowledge to develop innovative products.

Location: Manchester

Start date: July 2026

Salary: 23000 per year plus benefits

Are you looking for a placement at the end of your second or third year and are you studying a Chemical Engineering degree? If so Cargill can offer you a superb opportunity to gain valuable work experience on our 13-month Undergraduate programme.

During your placement with Cargill you will spend your time in one of our sites in the UK.

You will be responsible for small projects from initial design to completion. This will involve justification of projects design liaise with contractors to obtain the best possible solution installation and finally commissioning. This could be anything from modification of pipe work to implementing changes in the process. You will participate in day-to-day manufacturing operations and this could include shift work.

The Engineering Placement programme is a great pathway to the EMEA Graduate Program.

• Comprehensive induction to Cargill including full safety training
• Spend time working on-shift to learn our processes and support site production management
• Play an active part in running our process and supporting our business
• Support and lead small continuous improvement processes delivering improvements around safety, food safety, product yield and process efficiency
• Be given direct responsibility for capital projects including the design, installation and commissioning to help develop project management skills and responsibility for a future career
• Responsible for running regular site project update meetings and maintaining budget information for all site projects on Cargill's project monitoring software
• Coordinate input from engineering disciplines and subject matter experts to ensure engineering designs meet the specific needs of the business
• Learn soft skills that will be transferable in your future career
• Gain an excellent working knowledge of unit operations learnt at university with hands on practical experience
• Develop the ability to work with a variety of different colleagues in our operations i.e. operators, supervisors, supply chain, finance, health & safety and food quality
• Be involved in citizenship activities within our local communities

• Currently studying for an undergraduate Chemical Engineering Degree (BEng. or MEng.) with an expected grade of 2:1 or above
• Students that are able to take ownership, want to gain hands on experience and are curious and passionate to learn as well as being a strong communicator
• Good technical understanding of a process environment
• Ability to learn to use new engineering and management software swiftly and proficiently
• A strong interest in our business, our industry and in particular the position you have applied for
• Fluency in English language

The first stage of our recruitment process is an interview with a recruiter to assess and rate your responses to a series of questions about your motivation and experience. If successful then you will be invited to participate in an assessment centre at one of our facilities.

Prior to attending the assessment centre you will be invited to complete some online testing at home.

The assessment consists of a range of activities.…