University placement arrangement responsibility

Short answer

There is no single legal rule that says a university must always arrange your placement for you. Whether the university has to arrange it, or can require you to find your own, depends primarily on what the university promised. That promise is found in the contract between you and the university, which is made up of the course information, prospectus, offer documents, programme handbook, placement policy and terms and conditions. Both models are lawful: some universities arrange placements, some require students to source their own, and many operate a mixture where the student searches but the university approves and supports.

Where the answer comes from

Your relationship with the university is a consumer contract, and it is governed by consumer protection law, in particular the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the rules on unfair and misleading practices now contained in the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. The Competition and Markets Authority guidance for higher education providers and the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) both treat information about placements as important “material information” that a student relies on when choosing a course.

The decisive question is what the university told you, before you enrolled and in your programme documentation, about who is responsible for arranging the placement. The OIA, which handles student complaints against universities in England and Wales, expressly looks at whether the placement is optional or compulsory, and whether the student or the provider is responsible for arranging it, and if the student is responsible, what they are expected to do.

If the university said it would arrange the placement

If the prospectus, course page, offer, or handbook stated or clearly implied that the university would find or guarantee a placement, then that becomes a term of your contract. Requiring you to find one yourself instead could be a breach of contract and potentially a misleading practice under consumer law, especially if the placement promise influenced your decision to enrol. In that situation you would be entitled to hold the university to what it said, or to seek a remedy for its failure.

If the university said you must find your own placement

Equally, if the documentation made clear that students are responsible for sourcing their own placement, the university is generally entitled to require that, provided it made the position clear and accurate before you committed. This is a common and lawful model, particularly on sandwich or professional courses. Even where students find their own placement, good practice, reflected in earlier government placement guidance, is that the university should still take on the formal arrangements once a placement is identified, for example vetting the employer, agreeing learning outcomes and confirming the timings. A university requiring you to do the searching does not usually escape all responsibility, it typically still owes duties around approval, support and health and safety checks.

Where the placement is compulsory for the qualification

The position is more sensitive where a placement is a mandatory part of the course, so that you cannot graduate or qualify without it. If the university requires you to find the placement yourself and you cannot, despite reasonable efforts, the university generally has to have a fair fallback, for example additional support, an alternative assessment route, a way to progress, or another means of completing the qualification. A university cannot fairly leave you unable to complete a compulsory element with no support and no alternative, and the OIA regularly considers whether the provider gave adequate and reasonable support in sourcing placements.

What matters most in your case

To work out your position you need to check exactly what you were told and when. The key documents are the course or programme specification, the prospectus or web page as it appeared when you applied, your offer letter, the student terms and conditions, and the placement policy or handbook. Look specifically for wording about who arranges the placement, whether it is guaranteed, whether it is compulsory, what support the university provides, and what happens if no placement is secured. Any clear promise that placements are arranged or guaranteed strengthens your position. Wording that clearly places the responsibility on students weakens it, though it does not remove the duty to give reasonable support.

Practical next steps

1. Gather the documents above and note any statements about placement responsibility, guarantees and support.

2. Ask the placement office or your course leader, in writing, to confirm who is responsible for arranging the placement, what support the university provides, and what happens if you cannot find one despite reasonable efforts.

3. Keep a record of your own placement search efforts, applications and any help you requested, in case you later need to show you acted reasonably.

4. If you believe the university promised to arrange a placement, or is failing to provide reasonable support for a compulsory placement, raise it through the university’s internal complaints procedure and set out clearly what was promised and what you want.

5. If the internal complaint does not resolve it, you can escalate to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education, which reviews complaints once the internal process is exhausted and can recommend remedies including compensation or further support.

Key missing facts

The answer turns on details you have not given: whether the placement is compulsory or optional, exactly what the university said in its marketing and documentation about who arranges placements, whether any guarantee was made, what support has been offered, and whether you have genuinely been unable to find a placement despite reasonable effort. If you tell me what your course materials and placement policy actually say, I can give you a more precise view of whether the university is within its rights or is in breach.