Health: roles for doctoral graduates

This is a highly-skilled and extremely diverse sector with a much higher educational level than the national average. Clinical and technical specialisms are key areas for doctoral graduates, but as the National Health Service is an extremely large organisation, there are all the roles that can be found in large, influential and well-staffed organisations, with roles in finance and recruitment being available. The sector has more direct opportunities for doctoral graduates from biomedical backgrounds, particularly those from clinical and medical disciplines.

‘What Do Researchers Do?' shows that 13% of UK-employed doctoral graduates were in health or social work three and a half years after graduation, compared to 14.9% six months after graduation.

Doctoral graduates from recent years are known to have worked in the sector in the following profiled roles:

• Biochemists
• Biologists
• Clinical psychologist
• Chartered accountant
• Community pharmacist
• Doctor (including junior doctor, GP and consultant)
• Educational psychologist
• Environmental health officer
• Hosiptal/health service manager
• Hospital pharmacist
• Management consultant
• Mechanical engineer
• Microbiologist
• Pharmacologist
• Physicist
• Physiotherapist
• Research and development manager
• Social science, arts and humanities researcher
• Social worker
• Software designer, programmer and engineer
• Specialist registrar, consultant and general practitioner
• Statistician
• University and higher education lecturer