Top UKVarsities Hold Career Expo for Nigerian Alumni

Mary Ekah

A group of leading UK universities recently organised an invite-only careers event at the Eko Hotel, Lagos, extending the services and support provided to their graduates.

The event, which was opened by the UK Deputy High Commissioner to Nigeria, Laure Beaufils, had in attendance over 20 leading Nigerian employers seeking to meet with and employ recent graduates from the universities involved.

According to Beaufils, “I am delighted that 12 leading UK universities are organising this alumni careers event in Lagos. This will be a great opportunity to showcase the talent and skills of the Nigerian students trained in the UK. The UK is rightly proud of its education excellence and the universities represented today feature among the best that we have. I have no doubt that this will be a great opportunity for employers as they actively seek to identify talent to deliver on their business priorities. I hope this will also be an opportunity to encourage yet more Nigerian students to choose UK universities.”

The Regional Manager for West Africa at the University of Nottingham and the lead organiser of the event, Emma Tayou said: “Our students want to return to Nigerian to work and employ the skills and knowledge they have acquired. There is more that UK universities can do to facilitate access to employers and to provide careers support within the Nigerian job market. I am thrilled to be organising the first ever event in Nigeria exclusively for leading employers to meet UK educated Nigerian talents.”

The institutions involved were the University of Birmingham, Cardiff University, University of Edinburgh, University of Essex, University of Glasgow, University of Leeds, Loughborough University, Newcastle University, University of Nottingham, Robert Gordon University, University of Salford, and University of Southampton.

Popular with Nigerian students, these institutions have seen more than 10,000 Nigerians study with them over the past 10 years alone at various levels from bachelors through to PhD and so they had reached out to leading employers in Nigeria and to successful alumni to secure the participation of major employers, as well as smaller start-ups at the event.

The employers present at the event include Andela, Dangote Group, GE, KPMG, Huawei, Stanbic, Siemens, and the World Bank. Also, the British Council organised seminars with successful UK alumni to share their insights on the trends and requirements of different sectors in Nigeria at this time.