Vacation Scheme - Winter

A Vacation Scheme is your opportunity to spend some serious time interviewing us and our opportunity to get to know you. Our schemes in the Winter, Spring and Summer vacations replicate our Training Contract as much as possible and have an emphasis on the authentic trainee experience. The experience is challenging, but gives you a real insight into life at our Firm. 

We recruit nearly all our trainees from our Vacation Schemes. If you enjoy your time with us, and we see your potential, it's the way to secure a Training Contract and your future at Jones Day.

An application for a 2026/2027 Vacation Scheme is also an application for a Training Contract commencing September 2029.  We do not offer a direct training contract application route as we expect to recruit all of our trainees from our pool of scheme candidates. This is because we believe it is essential for candidates to understand and experience our distinctive training contract structure.

You can apply for one of our Schemes which take place on the dates below. You will be asked to select a first and a second choice of Schemes. If your first choice fills up, you will automatically be considered for your second choice. Please note, we screen, interview and offer Vacation Scheme places on a rolling basis - so do not wait for the final deadline, as interview places may already be full.

Vacation Scheme Dates

WINTER (30 November - 11 December 2026)

Applications open: 1 September 2026

Application deadline: 16 October 2026

Assessment Centre dates: 13 October, 3 November, 10 November 2026

SPRING (5 - 16 April 2027)

Applications open: 1 September 2026

Application deadline: 27 November 2026

Assessment Centre dates: 26 January, 9 February 2027

SUMMER (28 June - 9 July 2027)

Applications open: 1 September 2026

Application deadline: 8 January 2027

Assessment Centre dates: 23 February, 9 March, 27 April 2027

Eligibility

Any final year students, graduates, postgraduates and career changers from law or non-law backgrounds can apply for any scheme. Penultimate year students of qualifying law degrees can also apply for any scheme. We would invite other students including first years to come along to Events, enjoy your early years at University, and apply when eligible. 

To apply for our schemes, you will need a strong 2.1 degree (gained or predicted) and we do not have minimum school grade requirements. In order to hire from the widest talent possible, we have integrated Rare's contextual recruitment system into our recruitment process.  This allows us to better understand an applicant’s potential in the context in which their experiences have been gained (including in the context of their school's average student attainment). There is also opportunity to tell us about any mitigating circumstances on the application form that may have led to a lower-than-expected performance.