A spring week, a summer internship, a placement year and a school leaver apprenticeship are four different things. They open at four different times of year, they screen for four different year groups, and which one is right for you is usually settled by the year you are in rather than by preference.
Treating them as one queue is the expensive mistake: an October evening spent on a form you were never eligible for, and then spring, when the apprenticeship you could have had is posted. Every date below is an employer's own wording, from its own page, read on 2026-09-10.
Four routes, four calendars
| Route | What it is | Aimed at | When it runs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Insight or spring programme | Two days to a week, no prior knowledge expected | School leavers and first years | Advertised autumn or winter, runs spring or summer |
| Summer internship | Four to eight weeks over the summer, paid | Penultimate year | Opens September to November, can close early |
| Placement year, or year in industry | Around twelve months inside a sandwich degree | Students whose course requires a placement | Autumn, alongside the internships |
| School leaver apprenticeship | A job with study attached, Level 4 or Level 7 | School leavers, and graduates for Level 7 | Employer by employer, often outside the autumn wave |
There is a fifth way in that nobody advertises as a programme: the analyst and trainee vacancies smaller firms post one at a time. That is the last section.
When each window opens, in the employer's own words
LCP shows the shape of the autumn wave. Its summer internships page, read on 2026-09-10, says applications "will open on Monday 28 September 2026 and are due to close on Friday 23 October 2026", then adds that "due to application volume, we may close applications as early as Friday 9 October 2026". A four week window that may turn out to be a two week one.
The rest of the wave, all read the same day:
- WTW's internships page says the internship "lasts for eight weeks, starting in late June or early July". Its 2027 retirement actuarial internship for London carries a closing date of "30th September 2026", weeks away.
- Legal and General's future talent page says "Most of our Graduate roles open to application in October, our Internships in November", with intern assessment centres in January and February.
- Hymans Robertson's early career opportunities page describes "eight-week, competitively paid programmes (running in July and August)" and says "Our application windows open in autumn".
- Arch's early careers page states "Applications for our 2027 Summer Internship Opportunities will open in October 2026" for an eight-week paid programme "Aimed at students in their penultimate year of university".
- Aon's UK internships page says "Applications for our UK undergraduate programmes open each Autumn", while every stream still showed "Now closed for applications for 2026".
- Deloitte is the exception to the eight weeks: its early careers programmes page says the summer vacation scheme "lasts 4-6 weeks, depending on the business area you apply to", with "an expected start date of 28 June" in 2027.
Two employers sit outside that wave, both read on 2026-09-10. Broadstone's early careers page says a vacancy "may go live at any point from Autumn (October/November) until Spring (April/May)". Convex's intern programme page still carried last cycle's calendar: London applications live from 1 to 13 February, for a programme running 29 June to 21 August 2026. A new year window rather than an autumn one, and a description of the cycle just gone.
Where an employer has published nothing, the honest answer is nothing. On the same date, XPS's graduates and apprenticeships page offered an apply link, study support and a mentor, and no window at all; NFU Mutual's internships page said "There are currently no jobs available in our Internships teams". Neither is a closed window, because an absence is not a status: the tracker shows employers like those as having no current dates rather than inventing one.
What the spring week actually is
The spring week is an investment banking institution, and none of the employer pages read for this guide advertise an actuarial one under that name. What exists instead is a shorter insight programme, aimed earlier than an internship.
APR's Actuarial Insight Programme page, read on 2026-09-10, describes "a one-week programme held twice per year, once virtually and once in-person at our London offices", and for 2027 puts the virtual week on the "22nd to the 25th of March" and the in-person week on the "19th to the 22nd of July". It expects applicants "to be in their final year of college or in the first couple of years of university" and does not expect them "to have any prior actuarial or related knowledge", which is the difference between an insight programme and an internship. On the same date it said "Applications for the 2027 programme are not yet open", which is where most insight routes sit for most of the year.
Deloitte does run two-day spring programmes, and they repay a close read. Spring into Deloitte: Advisory is "a paid two-day work insight programme" for students "In their first year of university, or their second year of a four-year degree", and applications open "Monday 9th November 2026". Neither it nor the Finance version is actuarial: on that same page, actuarial is named on the BrightStart apprenticeship, the vacation scheme, the industrial placement and the graduate programme. So a spring programme is a way into the firm rather than into the actuarial team.
What employers publish about turning it into a graduate offer
Not one of the employer pages read for this guide publishes a conversion rate, so a percentage you meet somewhere else did not come from these employers. What several publish instead is a conditional sentence, and the condition is the informative part. All three were read on 2026-09-10.
Aon: "An internship or placement year gives you the opportunity to secure a place on our graduate programme or another internship, subject to your performance and business need". Hymans Robertson: "If you do really well, we may offer you a ring-fenced position on our graduate programme for when you finish your studies". NFU Mutual is the most precise: "Successful completion of the programme may even lead to you being fast-tracked through our graduate programme application process for 2027, subject to eligibility", which is a faster route through the process rather than a seat at the end of it.
So the internship is a recognised route in, gated on how you performed and on whether the team has a seat. That is worth a lot, and none of them wrote it as a promise.
Who is eligible, and the rules that quietly exclude people
The year of study rule catches people out, and it is usually one sentence deep in the page. Every page quoted below was read on 2026-09-10.
Penultimate year means penultimate year. WTW's retirement internship posting asks for someone "In your penultimate year at university" who is "On course to achieve a 2:1 degree in a numerate discipline or predicted 2:1 degree including A-Level Maths grade A/B or equivalent qualifications", so a numerate degree is one of two ways to clear that bar rather than the only one. NFU Mutual states the exclusion outright: "If you are due to graduate before the internship begins, you will not be eligible".
Some routes are aimed earlier than you would think. NFU Mutual adds "We will also consider applications from first year university students", and Aon's Work Insights programme is a "three day in-person programme" that "aims to provide greater access for students in Year 12/13 in state-funded schools or colleges", which is a school route rather than a university one.
The academic bar is set per route, not per firm. The UCAS points bar on Deloitte's page belongs to its apprenticeship routes: the BrightStart apprenticeship takes applicants who have "completed your A-Levels (or Highers in Scotland) with a minimum of 104 UCAS points", and the Career Shapers insight programmes want students at sixth form or college "studying towards at least 104 UCAS points from your top 3 A-Levels". Its university routes are set by degree instead: most of its summer vacation schemes and its industrial placement ask for "a predicted degree classification of 2:1 or above in any discipline", with no UCAS bar attached. Hymans Robertson says it has no "set minimum requirements in terms of academic achievement other than a confirmed 'pass' at undergraduate level". Read the bar on the route you are applying for, and read it before you rule yourself out of a firm that has not set one.
Sponsorship is a separate question. Legal and General states "We do not offer sponsorship for our Apprenticeship and Summer Internship schemes", while offering it "for some roles on our Graduate scheme". Our visa sponsorship tracker is where to check before the deadline, not after the offer.
What the work is actually like
The route decides the length; the employer decides the practice area.
Aon lists separate internship streams for pensions in London, pensions in the regions, general insurance and reinsurance analytics, and investment consulting, plus an industrial placement in pensions consulting: choosing the stream is choosing the work. NFU Mutual describes its financial risk internship as work contributing "to real projects such as With-Profits Business Management and Life Capital Management activities", which is a life insurer's language for reserving and capital. If you do not know which you want, the free practice area quiz and the guide on choosing an actuarial practice area set out the day in each.
The placement year is a different proposition, and Deloitte's wording says why: "Over 12 months, you'll be fully integrated in our team, working and training alongside our first-year graduates", for students "whose degree requires a placement". A year alongside the graduates is long enough to own something, which is why a placement reads on a CV like a first job rather than like work experience.
The school leaver route runs on its own clock
The standards are set nationally, so the shape is the same at every employer even where the timing is not. The IFoA's actuarial apprenticeships page, read on 2026-09-10, says the Level 4 Actuarial Technician "is an entry-level role into the financial sector" where "You will work as part of a team, supporting qualified actuaries using data to provide solutions for clients", and that apprenticeships "normally last 2-3 years" depending on previous experience and exam progress. The Level 7 Actuarial Higher Apprenticeship is "offered to both graduates and non-graduates" and "will last for 3.5 years if you don't have any IFoA exam exemptions, but will reduce by six months for every two subjects you have exemptions for".
Anyone starting the Level 4 now starts it on a new assessment plan. Skills England's version history for the standard, read on 2026-09-10, lists version 2.0 of Actuarial technician (ST0004) as current from 12/08/2026, with the change recorded as "Assessment plan revised".
This is also the route where the window may not be a window: Broadstone says "Our apprentice and trainee vacancies may be posted at any time of the year". Weighing an apprenticeship against a degree is its own decision, and the guide on an actuarial apprenticeship against university makes it.
If you have missed the window
Missing the autumn wave moves you onto other pages rather than out of the cycle. Broadstone's spread into April and May means a spring application there is a different vacancy rather than a late one. Smaller firms advertise individual analyst and trainee roles with no scheme attached, which is why the tracker carries analyst and trainee roles as a route of its own: one row per employer that keeps a standing page for them. If the CV has nothing in this shape on it yet, the guide on actuarial work experience with no internship covers what counts instead. And for the graduate windows this guide leaves out, the graduate scheme deadlines guide separates what employers have confirmed from what is reconstructed from the last cycle.
What to do next
Start with the year you are in, because it rules most of this out for you. Open the tracker filtered to the route that year allows, internships, placement years or school leaver routes, and write down the three closest dates. Apply in the first week of any window whose page carries an early close warning, and NFU Mutual's is the one to read twice: programmes "may close at any time once sufficient applications have been received". Then get the CV to the standard before the first form rather than after the first rejection.