Mergers & Acquisitions Corporate & Investment Banking Graduate Programme 2027 

Standard Chartered M&A Advisory Group is a global team with offices across the world and provides comprehensive advisory services to its clients on a wide range of M&A transactions and capital-raising activities, including mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and financial restructurings. Our M&A teams work closely with our coverage partners, and other product groups. 

As a graduate, you'll gain exposure to live deals, work alongside experienced bankers, and develop the analytical, commercial and communication skills that underpin successful transactions. From researching industries and analysing companies to supporting client presentations and deal execution, you'll contribute to work that helps clients navigate complex decisions and unlock growth opportunities. This is an opportunity to learn in a fast-paced, high-performance environment where your ideas and contributions matter from day one. 

About the Graduate Programme – how you’ll learn and grow  

Join a skills-first organisation where your potential matters more than your background. Over our two-year graduate programme, you’ll gain hands-on experience, build lasting relationships and grow your understanding of clients, markets and the wider business. From day one, you’ll contribute to meaningful work and be supported to build a successful long-term career.   

You’ll benefit from:   

• Real impact: Take ownership of meaningful work that contributes to business outcomes.  

• Future-ready capabilities: Build the technical, commercial and professional skills needed to succeed.   

• Global collaboration: Work with colleagues and clients across markets, products and functions.   

• Continuous growth: Learn from structured development, mentoring and practical experience.  

Bring the skills - we’ll help you build your career   

We welcome students from all degree disciplines and backgrounds, recognising that diverse perspectives drive innovation.  

We’re looking for people who can:

• Take ownership and demonstrate initiative.   

• Think critically and solve problems in a structured way.   

• Learn quickly and adapt to new challenges, seeking opportunities to grow and develop   

• Build strong relationships and collaborate effectively with others   

• Communicate confidently and collaborate across different cultures and backgrounds.  

• Demonstrate commercial curiosity and an interest in global markets, industries and clients.   

• Thrive in a dynamic, fast-paced and International environment.    

For technical roles, we particularly value backgrounds in Finance & Banking, Economics, Accounting, Mathematics and Statistics.  

Eligibility     

To be eligible for this graduate programme, you need to be in your final year of study and graduating by July 2027.  You must also have the permanent legal right to work in the country you’re applying to.   

You can only submit one application within a six-month period, so take time to review our opportunities and apply for the role that best fits your interests, skills and career goals.  

Key Dates 

• Assessment Centres: October 2026 onwards  

• Start Date: July 2027   

About Corporate & Investment Banking (CIB)   

We are a super-connector for many of the world’s largest companies across more than 50 markets, playing a central role in global trade, capital flows and economic growth. We work with governments, financial institutions, and some of the world’s most ambitious corporates to help them expand, invest, and navigate uncertainty across increasingly complex and fast-changing markets.  

What makes us distinctive is our combination of deep local expertise with an extensive and unique global network. We support clients across risk management, financing, transaction services, advisory, and sustainable finance, helping move capital to where it’s needed most and supporting the real economy across our footprint.  

About Standard Chartered

We're an international bank, nimble enough to act, big enough for impact. For more than 170 years, we've worked to make a positive difference for our clients, communities, and each other. We question the status quo, love a challenge and enjoy finding new opportunities to grow and do better than before. If you're looking for a career with purpose and you want to work for a bank making a difference, we want to hear from you. You can count on us to celebrate your unique talents and we can't wait to see the talents you can bring us.

Our purpose, to drive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity, together with our brand promise, to be here for good are achieved by how we each live our valued behaviours. When you work with us, you'll see how we value difference and advocate inclusion.

Together we:

• Do the right thing and are assertive, challenge one another, and live with integrity, while putting the client at the heart of what we do
• Never settle, continuously striving to improve and innovate, keeping things simple and learning from doing well, and not so wel
• Are better together, we can be ourselves, be inclusive, see more good in others, and work collectively to build for the long term

What we offer

In line with our Fair Pay Charter, we offer a competitive salary and benefits to support your mental, physical, financial and social wellbeing

• Core bank funding for retirement savings, medical and life insurance, with flexible and voluntary benefits available in some locations
• Time-off including annual leave, parental/maternity (20 weeks), sabbatical (12 months maximum) and volunteering leave (3 days), along with minimum global standards for annual and public holiday, which is combined to 30 days minimum
• Flexible working options based around home and office locations, with flexible working patterns.
• Proactive wellbeing support through Unmind, a market-leading digital wellbeing platform, development courses for resilience and other human skills, global Employee Assistance Programme, sick leave, mental health first-aiders and all sorts of self-help toolkits.
• A continuous learning culture to support your growth, with opportunities to reskill and upskill and access to physical, virtual and digital learning
• Being part of an inclusive and values driven organisation, one that embraces and celebrates our unique diversity, across our teams, business functions and geographies - everyone feels respected and can realise their full potential.

Recruitment Assessment

Some of our roles use assessments to help us understand how suitable you are for the role you've applied to. If you are invited to take an assessment, this is great news. It means your application has progressed to an important stage of our recruitment process.

Visit our careers website www.sc.com/careers