A £50,000 starting salary and other reasons to work at TPP

A good number of graduate employers have had to cut their number of graduate and intern recruits due to the pandemic. But not the digital healthcare company TPP.

TPP is not only hiring placement students and graduates – it has put no limit on the number it is hiring, and its graduate jobs have starting salaries of up to £50,000.

What’s more, as TPP provides technology solutions for healthcare professionals (including those working in GP surgeries, emergency departments and mental health services), employees get the satisfaction of doing something good: of supporting those who support us.

’We want as many bright graduates as possible to join us,’ says TPP

Wanted: an unlimited number of graduates

‘Our recruitment process is ongoing,’ explains Olivia, who works in the recruitment team. ‘Therefore, there is no limit on how many candidates we can take on. We just want as many bright graduates as possible to join us. As such, we are flexible with start dates and don’t have set intake dates.’

TPP doesn’t just hire for technical roles – along with graduate software developer, analyst and product specialist vacancies, there are commercial management, account management, and communications and marketing jobs. And the starting salaries are way above what targetjobs has seen advertised elsewhere for comparable job titles.

• Browse TPP’s graduate and student placement vacancies

Naturally, there is more competition for some positions than others. ‘We get a lot of applications for the communications and marketing role,’ says Olivia. ‘The technical engineer role receives the fewest applications, which is probably because it is one of the very few roles for which we require specific experience (we ask for a computer-related degree and a strong personal interest in computer hardware, cyber security and databases). In general, I think the £50,000 salary we offer for many of our roles makes people assume that they either need lots of experience or they would be working lots of long, crazy hours, but neither of these are true.’

Wanted: bright sparks… no experience necessary

Refreshingly, for the majority of its vacancies, TPP does not require a specific degree background or related experience – although it does set minimum academic grades. ‘We believe that naturally driven people have the ability to excel in our roles,’ says Olivia. ‘We can provide the training required for you to be successful. As long as you have problem-solving ability, drive and the other qualities stated in our job advertisements, we know that you will do well.’

For its software developer role, TPP specifically states that no coding experience is required – in fact, many of its successful candidates have never programmed before. This is something else that marks the company out as different; many employers require knowledge of at least one programming language. Instead, TPP focuses on assessing your ability to solve problems and think laterally.

Part of the application process is an in-person logic and reasoning test. ‘Passing shows whether candidates have good maths and problem-solving ability, which are some of the essential skills you need to become a TPP software developer’ says Olivia.

A good employer that does good work

Providing technology solutions and services to the healthcare profession has never seemed more important than during a pandemic. It’s not surprising, therefore, that TPP employees were designated as keyworkers. The key ways in which TPP has supported the healthcare professions throughout Covid-19 include:

• working with organisations such as Biobank (which runs a largescale biomedical database) and helping to create the OpenSAFELY platform to make pseudonymised data available for essential research, to help understand more about the pandemic
• creating video functionality for GP surgeries and developing a patient app (Airmid) that empowers patients to manage their health from home
• enhancing SystmOne, the company’s clinical system used predominantly by healthcare professionals working in primary care, so that they can aid clinicians working from home
• carrying out research and projects to help ensure the vaccination roll out in the UK and accurate record keeping
• developing a surveillance system to track and pinpoint outbreaks and feeding back data to clinical commissioning groups in the NHS.

But, of course, the good work that TPP does is not just centred on the pandemic. Business analyst Kieran explains: ‘We also have ongoing AI projects. We have one of the largest databases in the world and, therefore, we can securely and consensually use data along with machine learning to help highlight the early warning signs of cancer, for example.’

And he, along with other TPP employees, gets the chance to make a tangible difference in his day-to-day work: ‘I get to go on a journey of identifying a problem, designing a solution and then seeing a user benefiting in their day-to-day lives because of a change that I designed for SystmOne. I really enjoy that.’

Software developer Annelie was attracted to TPP partly because of the work that it does: ‘I wanted a job where I felt I was actually contributing to something meaningful; the work we do really does improve patient care.’

She finds the work challenging in the best way possible: ‘TPP maintains the best aspects of studying at university – the work is motivating and interesting, with lots to learn every day. I think one of the things that differentiates TPP is that it operates on a flat hierarchy, meaning that you are given responsibility and work on large projects. But at the same time, my leisure time is “guilt free”; I don’t have to think about work on evenings and weekends.’

TPP also puts a lot of effort into fostering a friendly office environment, in which staff are appreciated. It’s not many companies that would give you a £200 birthday meal allowance, guitar lessons and a paid bar tab on top of other benefits and social activities. For many of its employees, the head office being located in Leeds is also something of a plus: ‘I was looking for a job not in London,’ says Annelie. ‘Outside of work, I enjoy running and being outdoors. The Yorkshire Dales is really close and easy to get to, so the area is a perfect fit for my hobbies.’

• Read more about TPP on its organisation hub

Ready to apply?

There are lots of reasons to apply to TPP – after all, you’ll get a job with a good salary doing something valuable. If you have any questions, check out the FAQ section of the TPP website as a first port of call.

In most cases, the in-person logical and reasoning test is the first stage of the application process. But before you book a time slot and location, you are asked to use a mini-self-assessment tool. Take it seriously and give it your full attention because it is a good indicator of whether you will be able to pass the logical and reasoning test.

Just remember that TPP is interested in your future potential. As it says on its website, it makes no difference to TPP if you are shy or outgoing, into sports or not. When asked about what candidates could do to impress during the recruitment process, Olivia was clear that the company doesn’t have a picture of an ‘impressive candidate’ in mind: ‘Everybody has their own characteristics, so we don’t look for specific behaviours or actions throughout the recruitment process. We just want bright and enthusiastic people who are driven and want a career rather than a job.’