What can I do with my PhD?

While many PhD graduates continue into academia, many enter other roles. The advice and resources on this page can help you decide what’s best for you. 

To help you decide, you can also book an appointment with a careers adviser and attend GRADskills careers workshops. 

General resources    

Academic careers

Academic careers vary by discipline, research area, institution, and the current academic job market. An academic job usually combines research, teaching and, for more senior roles, administration. Different jobs may involve these to various degrees, and you should understand what the roles you’re interested in emphasise. 

If you want to pursue a research-focused academic career, you will need to shift from research dependence (such as in your PhD and early postdoctoral career) to research independence (such as in your later postdoctoral career, fellowships, and lectureships).

Research independence means developing and shaping your own research interests and priorities, and gaining funding for that research in competitive situations. When considering academic career progression, you should reflect on how you can demonstrate research independence to funders or senior academics in your network. This will help you assess how your shift from research dependence to research independence is going.

Key questions

To help work out if an academic career is right for you, consider these questions, which you may also want to discuss with senior academics:

  • Are you sufficiently passionate about an area of research?
  • Can you, and do you want to, show research independence?
  • Are you open to conducting research at new institutions?
  • Are you aware of key funding opportunities in your field that would help develop your research interests?
  • How important is job stability to you?
  • Have you considered the work-life balance and lifestyle of academia?

Academic career resources

Careers beyond academia

While job listings outside academia rarely ask for PhDs, your transferable skills can make you a strong candidate for many roles. This means you should reflect on your career priorities and the aspects of your PhD experience you would like to keep or change. For further information, read What jobs can I do after my PhD?, a blog by Dr Holly Prescott, Careers Adviser for Postgraduate Researchers at the University of Birmingham.

A PhD trains you to become an independent researcher, and these skills can be applied outside of an academic setting. For some people, remaining in a research-based role may be preferable, but you don’t have to continue in research if you are curious about other roles.

In ‘The Career-wise researcher’, Vitae suggests post-PhD career options can be categorised into five areas:

  1. Academic roles
  2. Non-academic roles in higher education
  3. Research roles in sectors other than academia
  4. Roles using your subject area that are not research-focused
  5. ‘Anything goes’ – roles that may not directly involve your subject area or research, but use the transferable skills you've gained.

Key questions

To help work out if a career beyond academia is right for you, consider these questions, which you may also want to discuss with people working in the areas that interest you (by making a connection):

  • What are your career priorities? This could include things like full-time versus part-time work, work-life balance, and location.  
  • Which aspects of your PhD or academia would you like to keep, change, or leave behind?
  • Are you interested in non-academic roles within higher education?
  • Are you looking to continue in a research-based role outside academia?
  • What skills or strengths do you want to use in your next role?
  • Do you know where to find potential opportunities?

Careers beyond academia resources