LSE Careers has dedicated careers consultants who focus on supporting students who are disabled or have a long-term condition with the transition from education to employment.
Many students do not actually know whether they are considered disabled under UK law or whether their health condition is considered a disability.
Under the Equality Act 2010, you’re considered to have a disability if you have a “physical or mental impairment” that has a “substantial and long-term adverse effect” on your ability to carry out “normal day-to-day activities.” These activities can include things such as interacting with colleagues, carrying out interviews, and social activities.
The Equality Act protects people against discrimination and sets out the duty of employers, education providers, public bodies and others to provide reasonable adjustments.
For more details please visit the Disability Rights UK website.
How LSE Careers can support you
Book a 'Disabled students' appointment'
Disabled students’ appointments are 45-minute online or in-person appointments with specialist careers consultants who have expertise in disability and employment for disabled students.
You can book a disabled students' appointment on CareerHub.
If you can’t see ‘Disabled students’ appointment’ as an appointment type on CareerHub, please email careers.disability@lse.ac.uk for more information about booking appointments. You can also contact us at the same email address for specific disability-related queries.
About these appointments
We have used the word ‘disabled’ as a broad term to cover a wide range of conditions including:
- Less visible conditions and impairments
- Long-term health conditions
- Mental health conditions
- Neurodiversity or learning differences
- Physical disabilities
- Visible differences
In addition to general careers related topics such as job hunting, networking, and interview advice, you can discuss specific questions related to disability including:
- Your employment rights
- Whether to share details of your disability to employers and when to do this (sometimes referred to as disclosure)
- Asking for adjustments in the application process or as an employee as well as how to identify the right adjustments for you
- Dealing with gaps in your education or lack of work experience
- Identifying opportunities with inclusive employers
- Finding specialist resources for specific conditions
Join an online careers event
We run a programme of events across the academic year that are particularly relevant to disabled students, such as:
- ‘Breaking Down Barriers’ alumni panel – for students and graduates to hear from disabled alumni.
- ‘Talking Minds’ employer panel and Q&A – focused on mental health in the workplace, for students to hear from organisations about workplace initiatives and attitudes and what they do to support employees with mental health conditions in the workplace.
- ‘How to identify inclusive employers’ – addressing how to identify and engage with inclusive employers, including information on disclosure and reasonable adjustments and an open Q&A covering all aspects of disability and employment.
- Throughout the academic year, cross-university online events open to disabled students from different universities including LSE. Speakers include employers and disabled alumni. Upcoming events in this series include ‘Neurodiversity in the workplace’ and ‘Disability and roles within the creative industries.’
You can book all upcoming careers events on CareerHub.
Before heading to a networking event or alumni panel, you might like to check out our networking webpage and read this useful blog post about making the most of careers events.
Find a mentor or get work experience
In addition to widely available work-based learning opportunities at LSE, we also run the following schemes specifically designed for disabled students:
- Alumni mentoring scheme – an eight-month mentoring scheme connecting disabled students with disabled alumni mentors. Keep an eye out for emails from LSE Careers about when this is open!
- Volunteering placement scheme – run in partnership with LSE Volunteer Centre: Summer Volunteering Scheme for Disabled Students.
Explore useful information and resources
Resources at LSE
External resources