Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. Since 2020, the 10,000 Interns Foundation has created more than 10,000 paid internships for talented, underrepresented students and graduates across the UK, opening doors into industries where many have historically been excluded.
Buro Happold has been involved with the 10,000 Interns Foundation since its inception. Each summer, we welcome students and graduates for eight‑week, paid internships across a wide range of teams, including Structural Engineering, Environment, Finance, Sustainability, Legal & Commercial, Computational, Human Resources, and IT. This partnership is a core part of our commitment to building a more inclusive and representative workforce in the engineering and consulting sector.
The Foundation is now harnessing its unique insight and data to shape corporate practice, influence policy, and transform the systems that define our world of work – expanding access and enabling underrepresented talent to thrive at every level.
Meaningful experience across our business
Our early careers team is passionate about offering work placement opportunities to students and graduates from all backgrounds, ensuring they can explore potential career paths and understand what they do – and don’t – enjoy. During their time with us, interns gain first‑hand exposure to a professional environment and work alongside experts in their fields, contributing to live projects and seeing how multidisciplinary teams collaborate to solve complex built environment challenges. For many, this is their first opportunity to engage directly with industry professionals beyond university, helping them build confidence, clarify their future ambitions, and develop networks that can support their next steps.
As part of this year’s programme, our Young Employees Forum (YEF) curated a full day of engagement in our London office, beginning with arrivals and a welcome before introductions from 10,000 Interns alumnus Simon Sepuya and the YEF. The group then took part in an interactive activity designed to spark conversation and connection, followed by a knowledge‑sharing session focused on different career journeys and experiences, and lunch with the London YEF community to deepen those informal networks. In the afternoon, interns heard from our Barbican team about their work on one of London’s most distinctive estates, before heading out on a project visit to the Barbican Estate itself to see how engineering, architecture, and consultancy come together in practice.
Interns’ perspectives
For many of our interns, the flexibility and openness of the programme has been a defining feature of their time at Buro Happold.
Zakiya Yousuf, Summer Placement – IT, highlighted the breadth of experience and supportive culture she encountered:
“As an intern within the IT department, it has been so holistic and engaging so far. I’ve spent time working with different teams, understanding their functions, and carrying out practical projects to showcase my learnings. It’s also been such a friendly and open environment, where I find it easy to ask questions and learn from people around me. I feel confident that I will walk out of the programme with a range of new learnings and practical experiences and have personally narrowed down areas in IT where I envision myself working in in the near future.”
For Morgan Adetula, Summer Placement – Structures, the ability to tailor the internship to her interests was a welcome surprise: “What surprised me most was how open each department was to what I would like to do when I started. I thought it would be a set structure but the teams would ask me what areas I was interested in learning about and shaped it that way, and it was nice to have that choice.”
Rahma Hamzat, Summer Placement – Human Resources, emphasised the personal growth that comes from working across different teams and levels within the business:
“The most valuable thing I gained from the programme was my confidence, I think it’s really showed me how much I’m actually capable of. It’s given me skills in talking and interacting with people of all levels across the business on a day-to-day basis, so I can show my attributes and what I have to offer but also be curious about what it was they were doing, and I learnt a lot from them.”
Sustaining impact through partnership
The 10,000 Interns Foundation’s impact is made possible through a broad coalition of partners, members, and donors. Corporate partners provide financial backing and in‑kind support, helping to deepen the Foundation’s reach and strengthen its mission, while members and donors sustain the programme by hiring interns and contributing funds to ensure more talent can access meaningful career opportunities across a range of sectors.
By working with the 10,000 Interns Foundation, Buro Happold is helping to shape a future world of work in which opportunity is shared more equitably and underrepresented talent can thrive in careers spanning engineering, sustainability, and the wider built environment.
Lucy Davidson Senior Early Careers Talent Acquisition Consultant said:
“At Buro Happold, we see programmes like the 10,000 Interns Foundation as genuinely career‑shaping. For many of our interns, this is the first time they’ve been able to test their skills in a real project environment, build confidence in their own abilities, and see a clear path into the industry. When underrepresented talent is given paid, structured experience alongside people who want them to succeed, it doesn’t just open doors for the individual – it helps change what the future of our profession looks like.”
