What degree/career path with these subjects?

[DiaDuit]

Inspired by the 'which is most lucrative career' thread.

I am currently doing an access course with maths, physics and mechanics. My intention had been to go on to do physics or astrophysics at university but i'm not so set on that now (whereas before i had tunnel vision) and can see i have other options. So i was wondering what people would recommend as a career path that would be the most financially rewarding from these subjects. And what degree options will get me there. I'm currently leaning towards the engineering degrees but again, not fixed on that.

Would appreciate any advice and/or personal experiences.

Desperate shortage of engineers! A course with industrial placement is well worth doing that gets you accreditation. Have a look at etrust and stem courses.

I would look to the skies. Britain is having a boom in space and satellite manufacturing so look at those industries at good jobs and what the job specs are. What do employers want?

Try looking at the government's shortage occupation list -- designed for immigration purposes but gives you an idea of job areas where there are likely to be vacancies and of typical salaries.

engineering.

or finance if you can cope with the ridiculous hours / culture. - lots of people go from maths / physics into finance.

astrophysics is fun but not many jobs in it (only academic low paid ones).

Thank you all! Some good directions there to look into. Good to know there is a lack of engineers too!

Just looked at the list - didn't realise the country had a shortage of ballet dancers! Every girl in my primary school year did ballet apart from me - I could have been in high demand

I think you need to consider what you want to do - or could bear to do. I mean, the most financially rewarding career with those degrees is almost certainly banking/some sort of City finance job. I'd rather eat ground glass than either commute into London or live there.

There are a lot of physics graduates in IT, especially scientific programming. Will you make a fortune? No, but you're likely to be in demand, and for me a big factor was that it's dead easy to work part time and/or from home when you have small kids.

Be careful about Engineering because if you can only get onto a BEng course this can take you years and years to get to Chartered Engineer status afterwards. A quicker route are the MEng courses but they are academically more rigorous and 4 years. You will need to think of what type of engineering too. If you become an Incorporated Engineer,ie not the top rank of Engineer, your earnings will be limited, because you are not Chartered, but still good.

What sort of thing do you really like? For physicists, most lucrative would be things like financial modelling in the city. However, I did medical physics, and the pays not bad, and very satisfying as a career

Thanks all.

To answer a few questions. I cant get onto a MEng with my access course but i have the option of transferring in the second year of BEng to an MEng course if my first years results are good enough. If i go for engineering that would be my aim, probably do a sandwich degree aswell so would be a total of 5 years but talking with lecturers, a year's industry experience seems to be more desirable than without.

Secondly, i am in NI, (should have stated that- sorry) commuting distance to belfast, and wont be leaving here for career opportunities at least until DC are at uni age (so 13/14 years for youngest) so that limits my options a good deal i should imagine.

Wrt what i really like- i feel so crap when asked that question because i really dont know. I was drawn to te physics route because i am interested in astronomy, but whether that is enough to base a career on i dont know. I might get to the end of this course and find i am no good at physics (havent done anything difficult yet). Out of the engineering options i feel most drawn to aerospace engineering. Finance i hadnt even considered tbh.

Don't feel like crap because you don't know yet - I hadn't a clue when I started my course either! You'll discover what you like and what you're really good at as it goes.

I really wanted to go into particle physics research, but I just plain wasn't good enough at the complex maths involved. But I really like what I do now.

I recruit for a company of electronic engineers and programmers in the entertainment industry, and we look for good graduates in maths, physics or engineering (nice logical brains!) The pay (London) is 24-28k graduate entry.

Thanks upsy- that is good to know. We are expected to have our university choices made by halloween (course co-ordinator is keen to have UCAS all done early) so ive a few weeks to decide. Think i will take a break from thinking about it for a week or so and see if any answers naturally appear. Have exams this week anyway so need to concentrate on that. Thanks all for advice.

Have you considered medical physics or some similar technical measurement type careers in the NHS? There is a really well structured NHS recruitment programme for scientific careers which might be worth a google?

Thanks beck i will have a wee look at that. What should i search? NHS careers in science or something more specific?

Healthcare science careers - Med phys encompasses a number of different things, and when I trained you did 3 major areas (this is after your first degree which just needed to be physics, but I did Physics with medical physics) so you had a long time to decide on an area.
I originally intended to do clinical engineering, but ended up in radiotherapy as it was a fab fit for me

Thank you CMOt

How about green/environmental engineering? Just suggesting this as I have a cousin who did civil engineering way back in the 80s and his career has taken him very much in the direction of energy-efficient buildings and clean energy sourcing.

Hi math, i have been talking with my physics tutor and she also recommended the green/energy route (not her speciality) due to the massive surge in that field recently.

In other words- i'd be sure of work.

Still havent made any firm degree choices yet, got a couple of weeks yet so will think on some more.

Mathanxiety . A neighbour's DS was looking at environmental engineering but this is a branch of Civil Engineering and there are hardly any Civil and Environmental Engineering courses recognised by the Council of a Engineering Institutions. It is vital to do the right course to be able to get qualified to Chartered status.

. I'm in diagnostic radiology.
I'd second medical physics as an interesting, reasonably secure, reasonably well-paid career.

Thanks again for most recent posts.

milly that is really useful to know about the courses not being recognised. I wouldnt have known to check for that. Thank you.

Thanks spindelina- getting closer to decision time and exams over for a while so will spend this week properly thinking and investigating my preferences.

My cousin got his degree in UCD.

From www.qualifax.ie/attachments/-01_Engineering-CAO-points.pdf
The following table includes a list of courses accredited by the Engineering Council of the United Kingdom as leading to CEng status.
Northern Ireland:

Queen’s University Belfast (www.qub.ac.uk)
H400 BEng (Hons) in Aerospace Engineering
H412 MEng (Hons) in Aerospace Engineering
H800 BEng (Hons) in Chemical Engineering
H802 MEng (Hons) in Chemical Engineering
H200 BEng (Hons) in Civil Engineering
H202 MEng (Hons) in Civil Engineering
H252 MEng (Hons) in Environmental and Civil Engineering
H2K1 MEng (Hons) in Structural Engineering with Architecture
H780 BEng (Hons) in Manufacturing Engineering
H300 BEng (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering
HH37 MEng (Hons) in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering

University of Ulster (www.ulst.ac.uk)
KH22 BEng (Hons) in Building Services and Energy Engineering
H200 BEng (Hons) in Civil Engineering
H220 BEng (Hons) in Environmental Engineering
G600 BEng (Hons) in Software Engineering
G400 BSc (Hons) in Computing Science
G403 BSc (Hons) in Computing

Thank you math! That is great.

Civ Eng U Ulster

Sandwich year civ eng QUB

5-year civ and env sandwich year QUB