Skip to main content

Our employees in the armed forces community

Heriot-Watt University is committed to some Key Principles which form our pledge to the Armed Forces Covenant – and on these pages/this site you will see further information about how this works in practice:

  • Promoting the fact that we are an armed forces-friendly organisation;
  • Seeking to support the employment of veterans young and old and working with the Career Transition Partnership (CTP), in order to establish a tailored employment pathway for Service Leavers;
  • Striving to support the employment of Service spouses and partners;
  • Endeavouring to offer a degree of flexibility in granting leave for Service spouses and partners before, during and after a partner's deployment;
  • Seeking to support our employees who choose to be members of the Reserve forces, including by accommodating their training and deployment where possible;
  • Supporting our local cadet units, where possible;
  • Aiming to actively participate in Armed Forces Day

Set out below are some specific policies directly relating to our commitment in respect of training, volunteering and general wellbeing support:

  • Our Leave of Absence Policy includes information about time off for Reservists Training and Mobilisation, including Return from Mobilisation Volunteering.
  • Our Sickness Absence Policy sets out how we help and support staff who are absent due to ill-health or disability.
  • We have a Policy Statement on Stress and Mental Health
  • Our Family Friendly Suite of Policies also has a section on Compassionate Leave which is flexible in its Guidance to suit the circumstances of those individuals for whom Compassionate Leave is needed.

All of our Staff Policies are also available.

Recruiting Armed Forces personnel at Heriot-Watt University

Finding work at Heriot-Watt

All our jobs are advertised on our Jobs page. You can sign up at this page to be notified of any vacancies that you may be interested in at Heriot-Watt University and can also tailor the notifications to suit your interests, skills and experience.

For additional specific support for Armed Forces personnel, we are also registered with the Forces Families Job Portal for all our vacancies and we actively engage with Career Transition Partnership (CTP) to provide support for anyone who seeking employment following leaving the Armed Forces

We operate a Guaranteed Interview Scheme for applicants who are veterans or volunteers of the Armed Forces and who meet the minimum criteria for the role. When you make an application for a job at any of our UK campuses, you will be encouraged to tick the box that asks if you are a current or former member of the Armed Forces. If you meet the minimum criteria for the role you are applying for, you will automatically be guaranteed an interview.

As part of our commitment to both the Armed Forces Covenant and Disability Confident Accreditation, we are also happy to make reasonable adjustments for anyone who requires it, to enable you to attend interviews or other selection processes and perform to the best of your ability.

If you have any questions about our vacancies or our recruitment and selection process for jobs at Heriot-Watt University, please drop an email to recruitment@hw.ac.uk.

Employees who have links with the Armed Forces past or present

We encourage and support all our employees who wish to do volunteer work within the community or for charitable institutions, including volunteering to support Cadet Organisations such as the Cadet Force Adult Volunteers. It's part of our Strategy 2025, in particular the Strategic Theme of Flourishing Communities; and connects to our Values.

Our Leave of Absence Policy includes time off for Volunteering and for Reservist Leave.

Volunteer Reservist Leave

We are proud to confirm that we already offer time off for reservists at the Gold Award Standard of the Armed Forces Covenant. If you are already a member of the Reserve Forces, this will apply to you from Day One of your employment with us.

We also encourage employees who wish to become a member of the Volunteer Reserves (i.e. the Royal Naval Reserve, the Royal Marine Reserve, the Army Reserve, or the Royal Auxiliary Air Force), to discuss their plans with their line manager so that the University can support your aims.

If you are a Volunteer Reservist and need time off for activities or training, you will receive up to an additional 10 days paid leave each year to help you achieve your commitments. You may also use some of your annual leave and/or unpaid leave in addition to these 10 days.

Section 11 of the Leave of Absence Policy sets out further details about Reservist Training and Mobilisation, including how to book the additional days on our self-service HR system known as Cloud ERP.

Volunteering

We will grant up to four days additional paid leave in any leave year (which runs October- September) when you can share with your manager that you have used or plan to use the same amount of time for your Volunteering activities. Of course, how you spend your annual leave entitlement is your decision, but your manager will want to discuss with you how much time you wish to spend on your preferred volunteering activity or activities so that they can 'match' up to four days with additional Volunteer Leave. Full details are in our Leave of Absence Policy.