Careers, Employment and Work Placements

Work placements and careers

Our extensive links with designers, suppliers, manufacturers, specialists and professionals within the interior design and garden design industries allow us to offer our students unmatched opportunities to work on live design projects, work shadowing and employment opportunities.

As part of our commitment to offering industry-ready qualifications, our students are offered guidance on CV preparation, portfolio presentation, professional practice and upon graduation; our careers service also helps graduates find internships, job placements and freelance appointments utilising our jobs board. 

As part of our validated onsite courses, work shadowing is organised for students during holiday breaks. For online courses, we can connect students to local alums (if available) who can offer guidance on proactively approaching interior design or architectural firms about career opportunities and progression. For our non-validated industry-recognised courses, students also benefit from access to the jobs board and career advice should they need it.

Our alumni network provides a unique hub of international creative individuals and aims to keep them connected with West Dean and other graduates via news updates, careers support, networking opportunities and an established event programme.

International students work entitlement

In September 2019, the UK Government announced a new two-year post-study work visa, expanding opportunities for talented international students to build successful careers in the UK from 2020-21 onwards. This means qualifying international students completing a BA (Hons) Degree can stay and work in the UK for 2 years and then possibly apply for a skilled work visa. Visit the GovUK website for more details.

Internships

KLC does not support unpaid internships.  We accept that a brief period of work experience post-graduation can be on an expenses-paid basis as part of an extended period of interior design training.  However, we believe that anything longer than two weeks (full time) or four weeks (part-time) should be paid at National Minimum Wage at least and we won’t promote or endorse internships offered otherwise.