OPENING DOORS BUILDING FUTURESMeeting the T-level placement challenge

OPENING DOORS BUILDING FUTURES
Meeting the
T-level placement challenge

Morgan Sindall
Futures Academy

How Morgan Sindall Construction has teamed up with local colleges to meet the T Level placement demands...Contents

Morgan Sindall Futures Academy, Manchester

The placement problem

For many young people studying T Levels, the classroom is only part of the journey.

The qualification is designed to be technical, vocational and career-focused, but it also comes with a significant requirement: students must complete at least 45 days of workplace experience.

On paper, that industry placement is where learning becomes real. In practice, for colleges and employers, it can be one of the hardest parts to deliver well.

As Ella Tsui-Lau, Assistant Principal at The Manchester College, explains, the scale of the challenge is huge: “If every college training provider is to find work placement for at least 45 days for Level 3 students, the numbers are astronomical.”

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It is not simply about finding somewhere for students to go. It is about finding placements that are meaningful, consistent and connected to the careers young people are trying to understand.

Before the Morgan Sindall Futures Academy, that challenge was felt by both sides.

The college needed placements that would help students complete their qualification and make informed decisions about their futures. Morgan Sindall Construction needed a model that worked for busy project teams, rather than placing students across multiple sites without the structure or resource to give them the experience they deserved.

When work experience falls short

For Dan Burrell, Senior Planner at Morgan Sindall Construction, the previous approach could be difficult to manage.

Students might arrive on site without a clear understanding of what they would be doing, and the responsibility often sat heavily with site teams already focused on delivering projects.

“There wasn’t really any structure,” he says. “Students would turn up and they probably wouldn’t fully understand what they were going to be doing.” Sometimes, he adds, they were shown the same things repeatedly, which meant the experience was not always giving them the full picture of the industry.

That matters, because poor work experience can do more than waste time.

It can narrow a young person’s view of what an industry has to offer. In construction, where roles span planning, design management, commercial, pre-construction, site operations, supply chain, quality assurance and more, a student who only sees one corner of the business may never discover where they truly belong.

The risk is that placements become a box-ticking exercise — hours completed, but potential untouched.

A different kind of partnership

The Futures Academy was created to change that.

Developed through a partnership between Morgan Sindall Construction and The Manchester College, the model brings students into the business in a more structured, purposeful way.

Instead of sending individual students out to different sites, the Academy creates a programme of regular sessions across different departments, giving students exposure to the breadth of careers available within construction.

For Ella Tsui-Lang, this collaboration is exactly what technical education needs.

There needs to be more collaboration between education and employers. The Futures Academy is absolutely fantastic because it gives opportunities for our T Level students to work in the industry they have signed themselves up for, but also to have that experience of working with different departments within an organisation such as Morgan Sindall.

Ella Tsui-Lau, The Manchester College

It is a practical solution to a real problem. But it is also much more than that.

It gives the college reassurance that students are in a reputable, structured placement.

It gives Morgan Sindall teams the chance to plan properly and create sessions that are useful, engaging and valuable. Most importantly, it gives students a richer, more rounded introduction to the industry they may one day join.

Seeing the
whole industry

For many young people, construction can still appear narrow from the outside. It is often imagined as bricks, buildings and site work.

But the Academy opens up the wider picture including planning, design, commercial, pre-construction, project management, supply chain, quality and more.

It shows students that construction is not one job or one pathway, but a network of people, skills and decisions coming together to deliver something complex.

That breadth helps students test their assumptions. Some arrive thinking they want one career and discover another. Some realise that the role they had imagined may not be the right fit.

Others find something completely new; a discipline they had never heard of before, but can suddenly picture themselves pursuing. The Academy gives them the space to explore before they have to choose.

The difference is care

What makes the Academy stand out is not only the structure, but the care wrapped around it.

This is not work experience where students sit quietly in the corner or complete unrelated tasks to pass the time. It is a programme where people follow up, listen, reflect, advise and encourage.

There are conversations about CVs, mock interviews, career routes, confidence, worries and next steps. Students are not treated as visitors to be managed, but as young people with potential to be understood.

That care changes the quality of the experience. Week by week, students are exposed to something new. They are asked to think, present, contribute and reflect. They start to understand that the workplace is not an abstract idea waiting somewhere after college; it is made up of people willing to share what they know, explain how they got there, and show that there is more than one route into a fulfilling career.

The major difference between this and other work experience is that they actually care. They follow up on you, they listen to your worries and your fears, and they try to ensure that you enjoy your time in the Futures Academy.

Abel Aghagbon, T Level Student

Confidence grows quietly

The most powerful outcomes are not always the easiest to measure.

Yes, placement hours are completed. Yes, students gain knowledge of industry roles. Yes, the model helps the college and employer deliver placements more effectively. But the deeper change is more personal.

It is in the student who once felt unsure standing up to present their ideas. It is in the young person who did not know whether university was the only option. It is in the moment someone realises: if people like me can do this, maybe I can too.

Through the Academy, confidence has grown alongside competence. Students have learned how projects are planned, how teams collaborate, how different disciplines connect and how careers can develop in different directions.

But they have also learned how to speak to professionals, ask better questions, explain their thinking and believe that their voice belongs in the room.

This experience has given me more confidence, more knowledge and more self-awareness. Having seen people working in the industry, it makes me think; if they can do it, then I can do it as well!

Betaniya Tofik, T Level Student

A model that works both ways

The Academy also challenges the idea that work placements are only a benefit to students.

For Morgan Sindall, the model creates a better way to engage emerging talent.

Departments can prepare properly, share their expertise and contribute without the pressure of unstructured, one-off placements.

It also gives the business a closer view of the next generation; their curiosity, digital confidence, ambitions and expectations of work.

In an industry facing ongoing skills challenges, that matters. If construction wants to attract diverse, motivated young people, it has to show them more than the finished building. It has to show them the people, pathways and possibilities behind it.

From placement to possibility

The Futures Academy began as a practical response to a placement challenge. But its impact has reached much further. It has helped students make informed choices, build confidence, discover new routes and, in many cases, move towards apprenticeships and future careers.

At its heart, this is a story about partnership working as it should be: education and industry coming together not simply to meet a requirement, but to create something better than either could deliver alone. The result is a model that solves a real problem while enriching the experience for everyone involved. It gives colleges reassurance, employers a stronger way to engage, and young people something far more lasting than a completed placement log.

It gives them confidence. It gives them direction. And, perhaps most importantly, as Abel said himself; it gives them hope.

I'm completely bowled over with how our students have developed. It's really heart warming to hear of the journey they've been on. It really feels as though our students have found themselves. It's fantastic!

Ella Tsui-Lau, The Manchester College

The journey has been amazing. It's the best experience if you ask me. Every day is different and the people here really care. It's given me hope, and I feel like the future looks very, very bright for me now.

Abel Aghagbon, T Level Student

When I came here before, I was not that confident about what I actually want to be. Gill and the people who work here helped a lot. They interact with us in such a positive way that it makes us more confident about our futures.

Betaniya Tofik, T Level Student

They are the next generation and we want to pave the way for them as best as possible. Now we can give them a structured experience, with exposure to lots of different aspects of construction and a clear direction.

Dan Burrell, Morgan Sindall