What maths do you use in your job?

[DreamingofBrie]

A few years ago, a teacher started a brilliant thread on MN, asking posters whether they used maths in their job, and if so what job they did. The thread had hundreds of responses and it was great to see the diversity of the replies - I've used those responses in my classroom to show pupils how maths is used in jobs that they might not have thought of. Replies included a pilot, QC, nail technician, mediator, charity worker, SAHM, computer network programmer, chef, dancer, sports performance coach and many many more.

I'm a Maths teacher, so I use all sorts of maths in my job every day . I'm hoping for more interesting replies from this thread, so that I can update the display in my classroom!

Thanks in advance!

I'm a civil engineer and use maths daily:

to work out levels and gradients of roads, paths and gardens
heights of retaining walls
depths of carriageway construction
depth, gradient and capacity of drainage pipes and manholes
financial and programming information on projects

Farmer
% lambing rate. calculations for worming dosing etc. colostrum for weak newborn lambs. Weight of lambs for market. Amount of feed per group of sheep. Numbers for endless form filling and accounts. I'm sure I could think of hundreds of other examples.

Pricing and business analysis for an insurance company. Obviously I use A Level standard maths every day - including some reasonably sophisticated statistics. It’s a really good career if you can find the right employer and you have the maths skills. There’s a reason why so many insurer’s children follow them into the business.

One of the largest negligence claims I’ve ever seen was to a City lawyer who drew up a contract that included complicated calculations for future payments expressed in words but didn’t properly understand how averages work. Lawyers definitely need solid basic maths.

I'm an Economist and there's some Maths / Statistics involved including:

Analysing and inputting into econometric models
Economic forecasts of growth
Correlation between two variables e.g. do increases in lending lead to increases in house prices.
Lots of percentage changes and indexation.
Lots of demographic data.
Forecasts for impact of Brexit etc.
Business confidence surveys - undertaking and presenting
Reading and writing academic papers with maths / stats in.

Husband is an engineer and he writes out pages and pages of maths to work out things like are cracks in oil and gas/nuclear power stations safe, safety of airplane materials, designing fuel cells for cars.

Trigonometry. I work for the railway and part of my job is providing lifting plans for rail vehicles.

So when people said “we will literally never do this ever again when we leave school” little did i know.

Nurse here, drug calculations, weight loss/gain, fluid balances, input and out put and the difference in between.
Of course.. rota, hours of work, time owed (bloody loads, thanks to getting off late ALL. THE. TIME) annual leave calculations, pay calculations.
Blimey, I do a tonne of maths in a day without realising it!!!

I'm an artist, using materials from the sea shore.
I have to calculate tide times, how much I spend on gas, how long do I have at each beach beforw I have to move on.
I calculate liquids when mixing epoxy.
I use math in framing and matting, in centring my works, and even at what height to hang them for display.
I have to calculate the amount of glass that can be held per vase/ frame/tile
And then there is sales, taxes, discounts, etc to work out

Just marking my place on this thread for upcoming maths lessons

Great thread to start OP, thanks!

Forgot to say as an Economist I also look at income decile data and house prices- average earnings to house prices.

Had project last year to estimate GVA (growth) in an industry sector in towns which did by breaking down the ONS regional data and using formulas and a combination of median earnings and employment data for the local areas so each area had an allocated proportion of the region. Also analyse global macroeconomic and financial data and produce millions of graphs.

Housewife - budgeting, working out costs and percentages in the supermarket - for example earlier I realised that it was cheaper to buy 6 individual yogurts rather than a pack of 6. Plus help with homework. Cooking and baking also require Maths. I know it’s not a high powered job but you need maths in many everyday scenarios.

Midwife here - drug calculations, timings, weight loss and gain, fluid balance charts, EDD calculations etc. Probably more that I can't think of right now

I love reading all of these replies!

I've attached a few examples from my display - loads of diversity!

Florist
Basic mental arithmetic as I'm pricing up a sale as it's not practical to do it on the till when you've got your hands full.
Adding % to wholesale stock to mark up.
Working out how many roses I need if they cost X and I need to make thirty bouquets of different sizes.

My mental arithmetic is pretty solid!

GetOffTheRoof I have a female friend who does exactly what you do (you're not Welsh with a name beginning with R are you?).

I'm a residential property solicitor. I use maths to work out how long leases have left to run, calculate ground rent increases and when clauses in documents expire. I also apportion ground rent and service charge figures.

In previous roles I would also be working out SDLT liability and doing client completion statements to show how much money we need from them/ will be sending to them.

I’m a potter.
I have to mix up glaze to recipes. E.g. if I want to make up 7 kg of glaze and it contains 1.5% red iron oxide how many grams should I use? Etc. Also use graphs to plot kiln progress. Also, costing up, vat on orders etc.

Medical microbiologist. I use maths to calculate how many cells there are per ml of certain body fluids, CSF, ascitic fluid etc. This helps doctors diagnose patients with infections, as well as helping guide them in what treatment to give straight away depending on those results.

We also use maths to determine how much bacteria is present in a patient's sample, which can be the difference between an infection and just having a few bacteria present. We also use maths to determine what concentration of antibiotic will be effective against the specific types of bacteria, and so, determining what antiobiotics can be used to treat each individual patient's infection.

Work in a bank - have to be able to do quick addition and subtraction, as well as work with percentages for credit and debit interest.

Have to work out loan to value as a percentage for mortgages.

Also work with sales figures, ratios, percentages, trends.

Had a similar discussion with my DH the other night and discovered he didn't know that 0.01% and 0.1% were very very different!

Sales management, so lots of projections, forecasts, discounting, year on year comparisons.

Plus analysis of customer behaviour, use of our products, cost per use etc

I thought ‘ugh, none’ as a dog walker/pet sitter but I measure every route walked with each dog or group of dogs, and the time taken, all the distances traveled either on foot (replace shoes every 500 miles) and or in vehicle (mileage, tax return something). Frequently have to give meds like propalin syrup or liquid metacam so have to measure that in a syringe, and then some animals need to have their food weighed very carefully. Obviously some maths involved in figuring out how much to charge and adding mileage where necessary. I thought I’d carved out a number free life.

I work i the construction industry and use maths every day to work out pricing to construct multi million pound projects.

Another book keeper.

Addition/subtraction/multiplication/division/netting up/grossing down/ KPIs/ratios

Often convert %/decimals/fractions

Main job is finance, so lots of maths. P&L, balance sheets, invoicing etc.
I'm also a sculptor and use surprising amount of maths when working out scale, angles etc.
And hobby is crochet. Again, maths!
And I part time swim coach, lots of maths needed to calculate sets, PBs etc.
Not bad considering my highest maths grade is GCSE!

I'm a physicist. I primarily look after radioactive things on a shipyard. I use all the maths!
I work out coefficients for sources using calculus. I use statistics a lot to work out uncertainties ie standard deviation, t-values, degrees of freedom. I use Monte Carlo modelling techniques. I use regular old algebra and BODMAS. I use percentages. I use Taylor expansions and the odd Green function. I also have to work out my overtime and hours worked. I do financial calculations for purchasing equipment, including VAT deductions. I use logic too; lots of countifs!

I am a printer. I use maths to work out how much material I need to use, I use formulas to mix inks, I use equations to set my machines running. I use simple maths to quote jobs so we don’t lose money. I use simple maths to work out who owes me money when I do a lunch run. I could go on, but I think most people don’t actually realise how often we use maths skills each day.

I work in laboratory and use maths all the time for example if we need 40 ml of a 2% solution, how much powder should we weigh out? We also do orders and have work out how much of our grant is left.