Careers Support: Careers outside academia

Commercial research and development (R&D)

The pace is faster than academia, with less emphasis on the purity of the research and more on trying to achieve a commercial end goal. It can sometimes mean you have less control over the direction of your research.

Projects tend to be more dynamic, and you'll change project more often, giving you the opportunity to work on a wider range of projects in a shorter time. This offers an opportunity to build up your experience and technical knowledge much more quickly.

R&D into new substances or products provides opportunities for chemical scientists in a wide range of industries such as pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, gas and oil, sustainable energy, environmental clean-up and protection, and in manufacturing industries raning from aerospace to textiles or food. These opportunities arise across all sorts of companies, from large multinationals to smaller or medium size enterprises, to new start-ups and spin outs from universities. 

Research Institutes

Some of these are run by government while others hold charitable status and carry out research in many different areas, particularly in the medical and healthcare fields – for example, the Institute of Cancer Research and Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.

Science policy

Many types of organisations commission or carry out research, or are heavily involved in supporting science. These may be in government departments such as the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, or policy shapers – for example, think tanks.

Other types of organisations – such as NGOs, charities and campaigning groups – are reliant on the outputs of scientific research, and so employ scientists to help them make use of that research.

Technical consulting companies & contract research organisations (CROs)

These organisations are involved in the development of new products or services for larger companies and often employ chemical scientists to carry out this work.

Science communication and writing

Scientific communication and writing jobs can range from helping non-scientists to understand science, to scientific journalism, writing and publishing. There are also opportunities for writing in technical marketing – for example, medical communication roles. Job roles include science journalism, public relations, museum education, events organisation and project management. 

They are employed by organisations including scientific and popular journals, newspapers, radio and television outlets, chemical science companies, and not-for-profits.

ChemCareers webinar: A career in science communication, 2018 - advice on how to develop a career in science communication from writers and public engagement specialists.