How to Find Vet Work Experience

Work experience forms part of the entry requirements for all veterinary medicine courses in the UK. Beyond this, if you’re aiming to become a vet, undertaking as much work experience as possible is vital to understanding the demands of this unique and challenging industry, making sure it’s right for you, and developing your skills.

However, many applicants struggle to find the right placements. Some receive rejection after rejection from the veterinary practices they email, while others face barriers based on their location or age.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through why you need vet work experience, break down all the different ways you can find it, and give you top tips for your applications and placements. We also have guides on finding placements in related fields – take a look at our advice on medicine work experience and psychology work experience.

We’ll also discuss Dukes Plus’s own Young Vet Summer Experience, an incredible two-week summer programme designed for budding vets aged 15-18.

Why do you need vet work experience?

Getting a solid quantity of relevant work experience under your belt is vital to an application for Veterinary Medicine at university. Vet med schools each have their own work experience requirements, but the common thread is that they all require it – typically several weeks’ worth before they will consider your application.

Why do they ask for it? Well, the good news is that it’s not a simple box-ticking exercise. A career as a vet is highly demanding and unique, and universities want to make sure that you have at least come to an informed decision about pursuing it. It’s far from unheard of for a budding vet med applicant to decide after a week’s lambing that maybe this isn’t the career for them.

Although that might be disappointing at first, it’s fantastic in the long run – it means you will save years of your life (not to mention tens of thousands of pounds) that you would otherwise have wasted on a career that doesn’t suit you.

You’ll also pick up some really valuable skills from your experience – so long as you get some good placements, work hard, and reflect on them carefully. Not only will you learn (a little bit) about what it’s like to be a working vet, you’ll also develop skills in teamwork, problem-solving, and organisation, discover how vets consult with clients, and realise how animals behave in an up-close-and-personal setting.

When it comes to making your application, this experience is perfect fodder for your personal statement. Here, don’t just run through a list of the placements you got and what you did – universities also want to see you have reflected on what you learned, referring to specific, interesting examples from your work experience.

The same applies to interviews. You can definitely expect any experience you mention in your personal statement or SAQ (supplementary additional questionnaire) to be discussed in an interview. Remember, everything that happens in the application process is an opportunity to impress, and to stand out vs other applicants. So if you get it right, work experience is the gift that can keep on giving all the way through your application.

What work experience do veterinary schools require?

Each veterinary school has a different set of requirements when it comes to the vet work experience you need to apply. These also change from year to year – for instance, over Covid, a number of universities accepted online MOOCs as fulfilling their experience requirements which no longer do. We always recommend that you check with the specific vet med schools you’re applying to get the latest, most accurate information.

That said, universities are usually looking for 3-4 weeks’ vet work experience, which broadly fall into a number of different categories:

• Clinical / veterinary practice experience
• Husbandry and animal handling experience
• Research / laboratory experience
• Online experience

Some schools have specific requirements on how much of your experience needs to fall into each category. For instance, for its BVetMed degree, the Royal Veterinary College (RVC) requires at least 10 days of experience in one or more veterinary practices, plus 10 days of experience in non-clinical working environments with live animals.

And remember – keeping pets at home does not count as vet work experience!

How to find different types of vet work experience

Clinical / veterinary practice

This is usually the most sought-after type of experience (for good reason – it’s the most direct access you can get to the veterinary profession!) but also often the hardest to get.

There are no silver bullets here. If you want work experience in a vet’s practice, you need to apply, apply, apply. Start by seeing if your careers advisor at school or any family friends can help hook you up with a placement. If they can’t, don’t worry – we’re just getting started.

Next, research all the practices within reasonable commuting distance of your home. Use this directory from the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons to find all the vets near you. Don’t just look for practices that advertise a work experience programme. You’re going to need to apply to lots, including those without an advertised scheme, to stand a good chance of success. Email with a CV and cover letter, introducing yourself, explaining your situation, your ambitions, and the type of experience you’re looking for. If you don’t hear back in a week, politely follow up by phone. This is grunt work, but if you stick to it, you should eventually get some success.

Husbandry

There are many ways to get husbandry experience. This is highly valued by vet schools and often involves more animal contact than you can get in a veterinary practice. Farm work experience placements provide an opportunity to observe and support the specialised healthcare of large animals, while gaining insight into preventative care and herd management.

Some common routes to finding placements are:

• Lambing – this takes place between February and April (so 6-8 months before your application deadline). Use the platform from the National Sheep Association to find lambing work experience with a farmer near you.
• Dairy farming – the key here is just to approach local farms and ask if they need your help. Phone or even turn up in person – remember to be friendly, polite, and professional!
• Wwoof is a programme for arranging work experience at organic farms. Some animal husbandry options should be available.

This can be tough to find, especially if you live in a city. You may have to call in favours from parents or family friends to find someone who will drive you to a farm. If this is impossible for you, our next section provides alternative options for animal handling work experience.

Other animal handling

There are so different places you can find this type of vet work experience. We’ll just run through the most highly recommended here:

• Animal shelters / rescue centres
• Kennels and catteries
• Pet shops
• Stables
• City farms
• Zoos
• Safari parks

Again, there is sadly no magic trick with applications. You need to approach as many as possible, be tenacious and persistent (but polite!), and keep your fingers crossed. If you cast your net wide enough, you’re bound to find a few solid placements.

Charities

Animal charities can be an overlooked way of gaining vet work experience. There are national charities you can consider:

• RSPCA
• PDSA
• RSPB

Before you sign up to volunteer, make sure that you would actually be working with animals as part of any placement! You don’t want to be stuck on the phone for a week asking for donations (valuable as that may be, it won’t advance your vet med application one jot).

There may also be local animal charities near you which need volunteers even more than the big nationals. They could be a great place to find experience.

Abbatoir

It might not be the first place you’d think of, but arranging veterinary work experience at an abattoir offers a distinctive and valuable perspective on a lesser-seen but vital area of the profession. Maintaining animal welfare and food safety standards are particularly important in abbatoirs.

It’s important to be aware that the environment can be both challenging and emotionally demanding, so approaching the experience with maturity and an open mind is essential. Exposure to abbatoirs can broaden your understanding of the veterinary field and strengthen your application to veterinary school. Reflecting on this experience be especially useful when facing interview questions about ethical considerations in the industry.

Research / laboratory

Research or lab placements can give you a unique perspective which many other applicants won’t have. Whether you’re working in a lab which researches diseases in animals or which conducts animal experiments, the experience can be invaluable. As with abbatoirs, the latter type is very good for ethics questions at interview.

These placements are challenging to get, however. In2Science may be able to help you arrange one if you meet their eligibility criteria.

Online / MOOCs

If you’re struggling to land enough in-person work experience, then online could be a good option. The courses are usually asynchronous which means you can start and finish them at a time that suits you. And, of course, they’re available wherever you live in the world.

The key thing is to research whether the universities you’re considering will allow online courses or experience to fulfill their vet work experience requirements. Some do and some don’t!

At the time of writing, Nottingham School of Veterinary Medicine and Science approves this MOOC (which is free, but must be completed within two weeks). For 2025 entry, however, RVC didn’t.

Other options

RVC has particularly tough work experience requirements for its courses. However, it does also run its own experience programme which (naturally) will contribute towards meeting its entry requirements. Please note that this is only open to students from under-represented backgrounds – the full list of eligibility criteria are available on the RVC website.

Young Vet Summer Experience

Dukes Plus’s own Young Vet Summer Experience is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience a career as a vet. Based in London and open to budding vets aged 15-18, you’ll work with real small animals and their owners, partake in practical surgical tasks including suturing, dental work and more, and visit a working farm, equine centre and tropical animal facility as you understand how vets interact with a wide array of animals

Plus, you will get mentoring from vets from a range of specialties who have studied at some of the world’s most elite veterinary schools. There’s also the chance to work towards a UCAS-accredited work experience qualification and gain UCAS points to support your university applications.

Book your place on the Young Vet Summer Experience today.

Top application tips

You may have garnered that the absolutely non-negotiable, number one application tip for vet work experience is: apply to as many places as possible.

A ratio of ten applications per acceptance is perfectly normal – and given that you have at least 3-4 weeks to fill, that might mean four or more placements.

Past vet med students who have been successful in gaining lots of excellent experience say that calling companies / farms / vet practices etc. can be the best route – some even recommend attending the site in person and asking if they can offer you experience. You need to demonstrate commitment, persistence, and tenacity – all while remaining polite, of course. If you do get a no from an organisation, then thank them for their time and ask if there is anything you could have done differently.

And remember not just to look for advertised placements. These make up only a small percentage of the total number of opportunities out there. (Plus, any advertised placements are likely to be much more competitive). Applying on spec can massively boost your chances of success.

How to make most of vet work experience

Once you’ve gone to the trouble of finding a range of placements, your work is just beginning (!) – now you need to make the most of them.

As we’ve seen, vet med schools don’t just want to know that you’ve done the work experience, they want to know what you learned from it. We recommend you keep a journal of all your experiences. Outline what you did each day and what it taught you. A good way to do this is think about what surprised you – this will show you have reflected on your preconceptions and learned from your experience. This journal will be a really useful resource when it comes to writing your personal statement and preparing for interview.

Focusing on so-called ‘soft skills’ as the centre of your learning experience is just as important (if not more so) than any clinical knowledge you gain during your placements. The veterinary degree will teach you all the clinical knowledge you need, but what admissions teams are looking for is evidence that you have the character, mindset, and disposition to make a good vet. That means things like teamwork, communication, a good work ethic, and problem solving should be your focus.

Young Vet Summer Experience

Experience a career as a vet on our incredible summer programme, with the chance to earn a UCAS-accredited work experience qualification.

Book Now