Formula Student careers guide
Build experience for an F1 career.
Formula Student gives university students a practical project built around a single-seat race car. Explore the work available within a team, how to get involved and how the experience could support applications for Formula 1 jobs and internships.
What is Formula Student?
Build more than a car.
Formula Student is an educational engineering competition run in the UK by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. University teams design, build and run a single-seat car, then explain and defend the decisions behind it.
The project reaches far beyond vehicle design. Teams may need people to work on manufacturing, data, software, electronics, budgeting, project planning, sponsorship, marketing and communications. That makes it a useful place to practise working across departments around one demanding goal.
It is experience, not a guaranteed route into Formula 1. What matters is the work you actually do, what you learn and how clearly you can explain your contribution.
Find your place in a team
It is not only for engineers.
A Formula Student car needs technical work, but the team around it also needs planning, money, partnerships and communication. Start with the kind of work you want to practise.
What you could practise
Turn theory into something visible.
Technical judgement
Make decisions, test them and explain the evidence behind your choices.
Delivery under pressure
Work towards real deadlines while balancing quality, time, cost and resources.
Cross-team communication
Coordinate with people whose priorities, language and responsibilities differ from yours.
Commercial awareness
Understand how budgets, suppliers, partners and presentation support the technical project.
Evidence for applications
Build specific examples for a CV, portfolio, cover letter or interview, based on your own contribution.
Getting involved
Find a team. Ask questions. Choose well.
Recruitment, eligibility, commitment and team structure differ between universities. Check the current details with the team itself before making plans.
Start with your university
Search its engineering department, students’ union and social channels for a Formula Student or Formula SAE team.
Look beyond the car
Ask whether the team recruits students from business, finance, computing, design, media or other courses as well as engineering.
Understand the commitment
Find out how recruitment works, when the team meets, what training is available and how much time members are expected to give.
Choose useful responsibility
A title matters less than being able to show what you owned, what changed because of your work and what you learned.
Find a team
Start with the current official list.
Teams and competition status change. IMechE publishes the current Formula Student UK entrant lists, including FS Class, Concept Class and FS-AI.
The examples below are a starting point, not a ranking or a complete list. Confirm current activity and recruitment directly with the university team.
Experience is useful when you can explain your part in it.
Do not rely on the Formula Student name alone. Keep a record of the problem, your responsibility, the decisions you made, the result and what you would improve.
Protect confidential team information and only claim work that was genuinely yours. A clear, honest example is more useful than an impressive title with no evidence behind it.
Keep building your route
Connect the project to your next step.
The Formula Careers Network
Team websites cannot tell you what joining feels like.
Compare experiences, ask the practical questions and talk to people building their own route towards Formula 1 and motorsport careers.
Use the Network to discuss university choices, Formula Student roles, workload, applications and the questions that do not fit neatly on a course page.
Formula Careers is independent and does not rank or endorse the universities or teams shown on this page. Team structures, recruitment, activities and competition status can change. Always confirm current information with the university, the team and IMechE.
Formula Student is a trademark of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. This website is unofficial and is not associated in any way with the Formula 1 companies. F1, FORMULA ONE, FORMULA 1, FIA FORMULA ONE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP, GRAND PRIX and related marks are trade marks of Formula One Licensing B.V.