Which system does Rolls-Royce use?
Rolls-Royce's careers site runs on the Workday platform (rollsroyce.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com). See our [Workday vendor page](/ats-systems/workday) for how the platform works generally.
Verification: live Rolls-Royce job postings and application pages resolve on rollsroyce.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com, including its professional-roles search, apprenticeship portal, and individual job requisitions. Workday's own published customer story independently confirms Rolls-Royce as a Workday Human Capital Management and Talent Acquisition customer.
Two completely separate companies — read this first
This page is about Rolls-Royce Holdings plc / Rolls-Royce plc: the FTSE-listed aerospace, defence and power-systems engineering group, headquartered in Derby, that makes jet engines and small modular nuclear reactors. It is entirely separate from Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Limited, the luxury car brand based in Goodwood and owned by BMW AG since 1998 — a split so widely confused that Rolls-Royce Motor Cars' own press office has issued public clarifications about it. If you're applying for a role building cars at Goodwood, this page's process detail doesn't apply to you; if you're applying for an engineering, apprenticeship or graduate role at the aerospace and defence group, it does.
Where the application happens, and the four documented stages
Rolls-Royce's careers site routes candidates into a Workday-hosted application platform, rollsroyce.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com, confirmed both by live job postings on that domain and independently by Workday's own published customer story describing Rolls-Royce's use of its Human Capital Management and Talent Acquisition products. For UK graduate and internship programmes, Rolls-Royce's own careers pages describe a four-stage funnel: Online Application ("your chance for us to get to know you"), Online Assessments ("show us what you've got to offer"), Assessment Centre ("discover more about us and us about you"), and Offer.
One honest gap: Rolls-Royce's own materials describe the assessment centre stage in real depth (below), but don't spell out the content of the Online Assessments stage itself — whether it's purely psychometric testing, a recorded interview, or both. This page doesn't fill that gap with a guess.
The assessment centre: four behaviours, a technical exercise, a timed presentation
Rolls-Royce's own published assessment-centre guides (updated versions hosted directly on careers.rolls-royce.com) set out the format precisely. It runs as a half-day session — virtual, by video call, for Graduate Programme and Internship candidates; in person at a Rolls-Royce site for Degree and Higher Apprenticeship and Level 3 Apprenticeship candidates. Components include a structured behavioural interview built around Rolls-Royce's four core behaviours, a technical exercise or case study (or a practical activity, role-dependent), and a timed presentation — 7 minutes for Graduate, Internship and Degree Apprenticeship candidates, 5 minutes for Level 3 apprentices — which must explain a complex topic to a non-specialist audience and connect it back to relevance at Rolls-Royce.
Rolls-Royce's own guide gives direct, quotable preparation tips: test your technology in advance for virtual sessions; practise your presentation aloud for timing and confidence; choose an authentic, genuinely interesting presentation topic that showcases your personality within the set criteria; ask clarifying questions during exercises rather than guessing; and for in-person sessions, arrive early and dress business-casual.
The four core behaviours — the same framework used across Rolls-Royce's ethics code
Rolls-Royce assesses candidates, on a published 1–6 scale, against four named behaviours that are also the foundation of its wider ethics and conduct framework ("Our Code"): Put Safety First ("prioritising the safety of our people and products and supporting each other to speak up"); Do The Right Thing ("supporting a culture of caring and belonging where we listen first, embrace feedback and act with integrity"); Keep It Simple ("working together to share and execute ideas and staying adaptable to new ideas and solutions"); and Make A Difference ("thinking about our decisions and challenging ourselves to deliver excellence and efficiency on the things that matter, every day"). Prepare a specific, concrete example for each behaviour before your assessment centre — the same STAR-style discipline recommended across most structured UK recruitment processes.
What's not officially confirmed: several independent prep sites (not Rolls-Royce sources) attribute the Online Assessments stage to Aon's cut-e platform, with some also mentioning SHL, and describe specific tests (situational judgement, numerical and verbal reasoning, an inductive-reasoning test). Two independent sources corroborate cut-e specifically, which is worth knowing about — but since neither is a Rolls-Royce-owned page, we're reporting it as third-party-attributed rather than confirmed fact.
Security clearance for defence roles, and current apprenticeship scale
Some Rolls-Royce roles carry documented eligibility restrictions: a live Rolls-Royce Defence job posting states directly, "an individual has to hold a Security Check clearance," and that "due to the nature of work the business conducts and the protection of certain assets we can only progress applications from individuals who are a UK national or, in MoD-approved cases, a dual national." If you're applying to a defence-adjacent role, expect this eligibility check early in the process rather than at the offer stage.
On scale: Rolls-Royce's own newsroom states it employs around 1,000 apprentices across the UK, spanning more than 25 apprenticeship routes from Level 2 to Level 7 across engineering, operations and business functions, plus a "Switch Programme" for career-changers and a "Young Apprentice Programme" for school students aged 15 and over. Separately, Rolls-Royce SMR — the group's small modular reactor subsidiary — announced in July 2025 that it was recruiting a second cohort of apprentices across supply chain, project management, manufacturing, security, IT, procurement and HR functions, based in Derby, Warrington and Manchester. We found no official, current numeric intake figure for the core graduate scheme itself, so this page doesn't state one.
Preparing your application: the checklist
Every item follows from the documented process above — nothing here is folklore.
- Apply through Rolls-Royce's Workday-hosted careers platform (rollsroyce.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com) — see our Workday vendor page for how the platform works generally.
- Prepare one specific, concrete example for each of the four core behaviours (Put Safety First, Do The Right Thing, Keep It Simple, Make A Difference) before your assessment centre interview.
- If invited to the assessment centre, prepare a presentation on an authentic, genuinely interesting topic — 7 minutes for Graduate, Internship and Degree Apprenticeship routes, 5 minutes for Level 3 apprentices — that explains a complex idea to a non-specialist and connects it back to Rolls-Royce.
- Test your technology in advance if your assessment centre is virtual (standard for Graduate Programme and Internship candidates) — Rolls-Royce's own guide states this directly.
- Ask clarifying questions during technical exercises or case studies rather than guessing at unstated assumptions.
- If you're applying to a defence-adjacent role, check the posting for Security Check clearance and UK-national/MoD-approved dual-national eligibility requirements early — some Rolls-Royce roles state these explicitly.
- Don't confuse this company with Rolls-Royce Motor Cars — if you're applying to build cars at Goodwood, you're applying to a wholly separate, BMW-owned company with its own recruitment process.
- Treat named third-party test-vendor claims (cut-e, SHL) as unconfirmed background context, not something to prepare for as if Rolls-Royce had disclosed it directly.