Careers

Many of our graduates go on to further study, largely because careers in biological research usually require PhD or Masters degrees. Some go into teaching, a small number do medicine as a (second) first degree, and others go into a wide range of jobs in finance, commerce or administration.

In the latest set of data available, Biology at Sheffield ranked third out of 86 UK Universities according to The Times newspaper´s league table of graduate first destinations. This means that a very high proportion of our graduates went into `graduate level´ jobs.

The following data relate to what our graduates were doing 6 months after graduation, ie in December 2011 after graduating in the summer. Of those who replied, 61% were in further study, and 26% were in paid work. The rest were travelling or doing voluntary work. Of the 39 graduates in further study, 22 were doing PhDs (around half in Sheffield), 10 were doing a Masters, and 4 were doing a PGCE in preparation for teaching. About half of the graduates in full-time work were directly using their degree by working in science or health-related industries, while the other half were in management, finance or engineering positions. Or to put it another way, 80% of those in work were in what is classed as graduate level jobs. These data are typical of earlier years, which show that rather more than half of our graduates eventually undertake PhDs. This is a very high proportion by national standards, and there has been a steady trend over the last few years for this number to increase. The number of graduates doing PhDs was 19 at the equivalent point in 2010 and 15 in 2009.

Current MBB graduates in the UK are working in a wide range of jobs, dominated by medicine/healthcare and education. They are working in Universities, research organisations, and the NHS; nationally known healthcare companies such as Abbott, Abcam, Amersham, Applied Biosystems, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi-Aventis, Schering Plough and Unilever; other well-known national companies such as BT, Capita, Friends Provident, Grant Thornton, HBOS [Halifax / Bank of Scotland], KPMG, Nature Publishing Group, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Schlumberger, Safeway and Tesco; and a wide range of smaller companies. One of our recent graduates is now Head Brewster at a new micro-brewery in Nottinghamshire, and loving it. Outside the UK, MBB graduates are again working in Universities, research institutes and healthcare companies all around the world, with job titles including Professor, Head of Research, Vice President, Patent Examiner and Musician.