Careers Information

All our SEPnet partners have useful careers pages on their websites full of information, advice and relevant resources for physics students. Go the following links to visit the relevant pages and make an appointment to see your specialist careers adviser:

University of Hertfordshire’s Careers, Employment and Enterprise Service offers support to students and graduates at all stages of the application process (including CV, application form and interview advice), as well as to employers looking to recruit. Their physics department also has some great case studies on past students and what they have achieved after their degree;

Portsmouth’s Purple Door Careers and Recruitment website provides helpful information on job vacancies, work experience and careers guidance;

Queen Mary, University of London has a dedicated webpage for physics students which provides helpful details about careers support, events and internships;

Royal Holloway University of London’s careers page for physics students provides information about internships and useful links to job vacancies and physics-related resources;

Southampton has valuable information for physics students about placements, careers support and graduate profiles; the Careers Service also provides dedicated career support for PhD Researchers;

Sussex careers page for physics students provides relevant information on jobs, events and courses. Its Careers and Employability Centre webpages also have lots of helpful tips, news and resources, including physics specific ones.

A-Z of Careers with PhysicsA-Z Image 2017

Physics students are told they can ‘do anything’ with a degree in physics but what types of careers can you pursue?  Our A-Z poster gives you ideas for lots of physics-related jobs and specialist fields which you might be interested in.

Click on the image to the right and follow the links for more information about career opportunities in each of these fields.  Email us with feedback or if you have any questions at employerengagement@sepnet.ac.uk

Institute of Physics

The Institute of Physics also has useful careers information on its website. It contains lots of information about jobs, placements and events for physics students and graduates.

Transferable Skills

To improve your chances of getting a job it is important, not only to develop employability skills, but also to understand what skills you have and how to show evidence of gaining these skills.

  • Skills Transformer provides science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) students with a structure to help you recognise, write about and talk about your skills.
  • Skills Transformer shows you, through hearing from STEM graduates, why transferable skills are vital to working successfully in science and technical jobs after graduation and why being able to write and talk about them is fundamental to securing a job.

Spend 5 minutes trying out the online Skills Transformer tool and work through the sessions to help you prepare for placement or job application forms and for interviews.

Let us know what you think by emailing summerplacements@sepnet.ac.uk

Careers Case Studies

Read about some of the different careers that physics graduates have pursued below:

Name: Louise Weller

Employer: Epsom College

Role:  Teacher of Physics

“As a physics teacher I feel so lucky to be able to talk about physics all day long. The best days are when a student says ‘oh I get it now’, or when they have a huge grin on their face because they’ve done well in a physics examination.”

Read More

Name: Jack Ashby

Employer: Adaptix Imaging

Role: Fabricating and testing x-ray emitters

You should find a field/sector which interests you the most and get in touch with a company who won’t mind showing you the ropes.

Read More

Name: PhiPhil Carpenterl Carpenter

Employer: Ikon Science

Role: Senior Business Development Manager

Recognise that academic achievement is only one strand of success. Learning how to work with other people is perhaps even more important.

Read More