Howard Chan
Howard Chan
Wrote this guide · international school, Tokyo
IB 45 / 45 (predicted) Incoming Cambridge HSPS Tokyo · UK·US·HK

This list exists because every other spring week list I found was either a forum thread or an aggregator page, and neither can tell you whether the programme still runs. Each firm below was checked against its own early-careers page, by a script that fetches the page and refuses to record a programme it cannot see. 97 firms confirmed across six tracks, with the verified page linked for each.

I am applying to these myself as an incoming Cambridge first year, which is why the checking is unsentimental: a wrong entry costs me an evening too.

What a spring week is, and why first years get a pass into the industry

A spring week is a two-to-five-day insight programme a UK finance or consulting firm runs over the Easter vacation for FIRST-YEAR undergraduates (second years on four-year courses). You shadow a desk, sit workshops, and meet the graduate recruiters. The reason they matter is mechanical: most banks hand a large share of their summer internship seats to spring week alumni through fast-track processes, and the summer internship is where full-time offers come from. Applying in first year is therefore the earliest move in the whole pipeline.

Applications open from late August through autumn and most close between October and January, with many firms reviewing on a rolling basis. Rolling means the seats fill as applications arrive, so an application in September beats an identical one in December.

Investment banking and advisory (37 firms)

Each name below was checked against the firm's own early-careers page rather than copied from a forum list. The link next to each is the page that was verified, so apply from there rather than a portal aggregator.

Alantra · Bank of America · Barclays · BNP Paribas · Centerview Partners · Citi · DC Advisory · Deutsche Bank · Evercore · Goldman Sachs · Greenhill · Guggenheim Securities · Houlihan Lokey · HSBC · Investec · J.P. Morgan · Jefferies · Lazard · Lloyds · Macquarie · Mizuho · Moelis · Morgan Stanley · MUFG · NatWest Group · Nomura · Peel Hunt · Perella Weinberg · PJT Partners · RBC Capital Markets · Robey Warshaw · Rothschild & Co · Santander · Societe Generale · Standard Chartered · UBS · Wells Fargo

Markets and sales & trading (4 firms)

Each name below was checked against the firm's own early-careers page rather than copied from a forum list. The link next to each is the page that was verified, so apply from there rather than a portal aggregator.

Bloomberg · London Stock Exchange Group · Moody's · S&P Global

Asset and wealth management (20 firms)

Each name below was checked against the firm's own early-careers page rather than copied from a forum list. The link next to each is the page that was verified, so apply from there rather than a portal aggregator.

abrdn · Apollo Global · Ares Management · Aviva Investors · Baillie Gifford · BlackRock · Blackstone · Bridgewater · Brookfield · Capital Group · Carlyle · Fidelity International · Invesco · Janus Henderson · KKR · Legal & General · M&G · PIMCO · Schroders · Wellington Management

Quant trading and research (19 firms)

Each name below was checked against the firm's own early-careers page rather than copied from a forum list. The link next to each is the page that was verified, so apply from there rather than a portal aggregator.

Balyasny · Citadel · Citadel Securities · DRW · Flow Traders · G-Research · IMC Trading · Jane Street · Jump Trading · Man Group · Marshall Wace · Maven Securities · Millennium · Optiver · Point72 · Qube Research and Technologies · SIG Susquehanna · Squarepoint · XTX Markets

Consulting and professional services (12 firms)

Each name below was checked against the firm's own early-careers page rather than copied from a forum list. The link next to each is the page that was verified, so apply from there rather than a portal aggregator.

Accenture · Alvarez & Marsal · Bain & Company · Boston Consulting Group · Deloitte · EY · FTI Consulting · KPMG · McKinsey & Company · Oliver Wyman · PwC · Teneo

Everything else that runs one (5 firms)

Each name below was checked against the firm's own early-careers page rather than copied from a forum list. The link next to each is the page that was verified, so apply from there rather than a portal aggregator.

Aon · Forvis Mazars · Frontier Economics · Piper Sandler · WTW

Firms with first-year routes worth checking directly

These firms have a verified early-careers page but do not name a spring week on it. Several run insight days, first-year programmes under other names, or off-cycle routes. They are leads, not confirmed programmes, and are listed because a first year with a spare evening can convert exactly this kind of list into interviews the majority never applies to.

Advent International · Akuna Capital · AlixPartners · Amundi · Artemis Investment Management · BNY · Beazley · Canaccord Genuity · Capula Investment Management · Charles River Associates · Cinven · Commerzbank · Cornerstone Research · D. E. Shaw · Fitch Ratings · General Atlantic · Gleacher Shacklock · Hiscox · ING · Insight Investment · Lincoln International · Lloyd's of London · Lombard Odier · Northern Trust · OC&C Strategy Consultants · PGIM · Panmure Liberum · Pictet · Roland Berger · SMBC · Schonfeld Strategic Advisors · State Street · Stifel · Strategy& · Swiss Re · Systematica Investments · Tower Research Capital · Two Sigma · Verition Fund Management · Vivienne Court Trading · Vontobel

Frequently asked questions

Most open between late August and October 2026 and close between October 2026 and January 2027. Many review on a rolling basis, so early applications materially outperform identical late ones.
First-year undergraduates on three-year courses, and usually second years on four-year courses. A few firms also accept penultimate-year students into parallel insight programmes.
At many banks a large share of summer interns come through the spring week fast track, in some cases via an assessment at the end of the week itself. That conversion is the reason the programmes matter more than their length suggests.
A script fetched each firm's own careers page and recorded a programme only when the page itself names one. Aggregators, forums and job boards were excluded structurally, because a page about a firm is not the firm.
The takeaway

97 firms verified as running spring weeks or first-year programmes for 2027, checked against their own pages on 26 August 2026. Apply early and from the firm's own page, not from an aggregator.