Emily Bater

Current Employer/Organisation Name

Santander UK

What have you been doing since leaving Exeter, and what are you doing now?

2 months after graduating from Exeter in 2024, I began the RBB graduate scheme at Santander UK. I have now been on the scheme for 18 months, with insightful rotations in Customer Interactions, Pricing and Savings & now Customer Research and Analytics. Each placement has opened my eyes to another aspect of the retail bank and provided me with a range of opportunities to become involved in both the business-as-usual work in the teams as well as exciting, high-profile initiatives. I am beginning to look for a permanent position of my interest within the bank as the graduate scheme draws to a close at the end of 2026. I have thoroughly enjoyed working at Santander UK thus far and am keen to further develop my knowledge and understanding of retail banking in a specialised role.

Why did you choose this career? And what do you enjoy most about your work?

I accepted the graduate scheme offer at Santander UK as the chance to rotate around different areas of the bank would allow me to have a taster of where I may see myself working in the future and which roles best align with my interests and skills. The scheme has enabled me to meet a diverse range of very intelligent people who all apply their expertise to their different roles; I feel privileged to learn from and be mentored by these individuals. I also like that every day at work is different – as someone on the graduate scheme, I have found that people are really willing to talk to me about their experiences and give me exposure to projects which are considered to be a pretty big deal within the bank and the industry as a whole.

Please tell us if you were a member of any societies, groups or sports clubs?

Cheerleading and Gymnastics Club (Exeter Emeralds) & Women in Business Society

What did you enjoy most about your programme and what was the biggest highlight?

I really enjoyed being able to spend time working in industry as part of my degree. I worked for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)/Haleon in Procurement for a year which was an amazing first opportunity working at a highly-valued, global organisation with support from the university. Procurement was an area of business which I had not studied before my placement year so being able to understand its critical importance within the organisation whilst developing quantitative and qualitative workplace skills significantly influenced my fourth year module choices. I think this experience also played a pivotal role in my job-hunting success in my final year at Exeter and I will always remember it as a positive, insightful start to working life.

What did you most enjoy about studying here?

I enjoyed being able to get stuck into such a wide variety of modules which I got to choose myself. The flexibility which Exeter offered is not something which I was aware of at other universities and it meant that I could really mould my degree into something which was my own and aligned with both my strengths and the skills which I wanted to develop.

Also, despite only really making the most of them in my final year of studying, office hours were really valuable to me and enabled idea exploration on a more personalised level with my lecturers. They helped me to focus my assignments on the most important aspects and gave me the confidence I often needed when approaching topics which I found initially daunting.

Why did you choose to study at Exeter?

My brother studied at the Cornwall campus and had a great time there so when it was my turn to decide which universities I wanted to apply to, Exeter was always going to be at the top of my list. When I visited the Streatham campus, I liked that a lot of investment had been put into the Business School which is where I would be spending a lot of my time and how the university had its community-like campus, but was still a part of the city and so close to neighbouring attractions.

What skills and experiences have been most useful for your career?

Being able to communicate with different people in a contextually-appropriate manner is something which is valuable in the job I do. Whether that is talking to a customer in a branch about their personal financial situation or writing an email to senior leaders about a project I am leading, it is important to know how, when and what to communicate. I feel that my experiences at Exeter with course mates, lecturers, seminar leaders, friends and peers in societies helped me to build these skills and I hope to continue to develop these throughout my career.

What advice would you give to a current student who wishes to pursue your career?

I would say try and get stuck into all aspects of university life. Although it can sometimes feel like there are competing priorities, it is really important to have a balance of studying and enjoying yourself, whether that is joining a society, undertaking work experience opportunities or exploring the local area. Often, it can be the time outside of studying that can help you to build up many transferrable skills which are now vital in today’s workplaces, such as organisation, teamwork, risk management and empathy. My time at Exeter felt like it went very quickly so I hope that current students are really making the most of it whilst they can!