The Undergraduate of the Year for Celebrating Resilience 2025

In 1904 Henry Royce, a working-class owner of an electrical and mechanical business, met Charles Rolls, an upper-class businessman. The rest is history. Over the past 100 years, Rolls-Royce has built a reputation for technical innovation and excellence; but the business could never have succeeded without the diversity of thought that it established from day one.

As an organisation, we’re now in the middle of an exciting period of transformation. We’re re-inventing Rolls-Royce. Expanding beyond our famous engineering capabilities and pushing the boundaries of a digital world. We have bold, ambitious purpose: to create sustainable solutions that meet the planet’s vital power needs. And to deliver on that purpose, we need to attract more bold, ambitious people to join us. The kind of people, that is, who win awards like these.

Why an award specifically for celebrating resilience?

We strongly believe in the value of people and ideas. We encourage everyone to share their thoughts and vision for the future, no matter who they are or their level of experience. And we do all we can to create an environment where every individual can be themselves and be their best.

We hope the Undergraduate of the Year Award for Celebrating Resilience 2024 will celebrate the success of students who have fought against the odds to pursue further education – and, through visibility of these student role models, inspire others to be as brave. We look forward to helping our winner and finalists take the next steps in their careers.

Click here to find out more about us and our internship and graduate opportunities.

If you've overcome challenges to pursue further education – whether you've faced health, educational or societal inequalities, were unable to go to university when you'd hoped to or financially it was a struggle, went to university after leaving care, have battled illness or injury, or had to balance studying with caring for a loved one – we'd like to hear from you.

You may not have had a straight-forward path to (or through) university, but you won't have let the challenges you've faced stop you from pursuing your dreams and ambitions. If you've broken through barriers to get to where you are today, we want to celebrate that with you.

Everyone belongs at Rolls-Royce. However, you identify and whatever your experiences, together we support each other to learn and grow across our communities and teams.

Our winner will be:

• open-minded and curious about the world around them
• motivated and passionate about the work that they do
• collaborative and creative in their approach to problem solving
• flexible and adaptable to different ways of working
• eager to learn and driven to succeed
• full of initiative and keen to take control of their career.

This award is open to students from any degree dicipline, but Rolls-Royce are particularly interested in you if you are studying:

Engineering, Maths, Science, Technology, History, Law, Politics, PPE, Geography, Business, Economics, Finance, International Relations, English or Languages.