Theoretical Physics - Industry jobs

[ConfusedZed]

Has anyone got any suggestions for where to look/which areas to explore for someone with a PhD in Theoretical Physics and wanting to go into industry, instead of continuing into academia? Has no previous experience in private sector/industry.

Currently living in the UK. EU pre-settled status and will only be qualified for basic security clearances from Nov 2025.

Have you got strong coding and data analytics skills? Either of those could be a good area to lean on.

It depends on their area of interest really. I've worked with theoretical physicists who work on commercial algorithms in med tech for example, or some who transitioned an interest in flow modelling to radiation transport.

My husband actually! He is skilled in Python and Rust, and has done a bit with Fortran. Over the past months he’s been doing some courses on data analytics!

Numerical optimisation is his area of interest - and he’s now looking into data analysis. We have been looking at tech jobs as well and even banks. Medicine/health is somewhere we’ve not fully explored!

Med tech requires physicists working as part of R&D and also during machine verification during installation. Also provision of support/training as required. Try one of the big med tech firms for more info (Siemens as an example)

Geophysics is a lot of numerical optimisation. Most roles would expect some machine learning experience. It's not just oil & gas these days, geothermal and wind need geophysics. Look at companies like SLB, CGG and Shearwater. It's fairly similar skills to a lot of medtech. Optics is also a big employer but the work can be sensitive. Another option is general tech consultancy where they do lots of different projects, somewhere like Cambridge Consultants.

It might be worth taking a look at roles in the cluster of Fusion companies around Culham, or someone like Malvern Panalytical. If he goes to his local IOP meetings and networks over the biscuits, people will be able to chat about ideas too, there are so many options and depending on area and your willingness to relocate there may be niche companies around with interesting opportunities

my DB works at a quantitative investing fund and they hire a lot of physicists - it's a phenomenal degree from the little I understand and they're all very highly paid.