Physics is a highly numerate and technical degree, so general employment prospects are excellent.
The comprehensive expertise of the Physics staff at Aberdeen means you will also be in an excellent position to pursue postgraduate opportunities in a huge variety of fields.
The University's Careers and Employability Service is there to help you with your next steps.
Physics graduate skills
The quantitative and data analysis skills you learn as a Physics student are highly valued and well remunerated in numerous sectors outside of science.
Physics graduates are typically academically excellent, critical thinkers and effective communicators, open to learning and personal development, and have the attributes to become active citizens.
As a Physics student you will learn many valuable transferable skills that are important for employability:
- Critical thinking, problem-solving, and the ability to apply rules to new information
- The ability to break down a complex problem into a set of discrete, logical, manageable steps
- A strong understanding of research skills (via interdisciplinary seminars and the 4th year project)
- Oral and poster presentations
- Group and team work
- Synopsis, report and essay writing
- A high level of fluency in mathematical topics
- Mathematical and computer modelling expertise
- Programming skills, which may include R, Python, Matlab, or Mathematica, depending on the courses chosen
- Computer based data and time series analysis and modelling
What career paths do Physics graduates follow?
The most common type of work for those in employment include Information Technology (28%), Business, HR, and Finance (21%), Engineering professions (11%), and Scientific professions (9%).
Common postgraduate fields for physics graduates include bio-medical physics, theoretical physics, applied physics, astrophysics, and data science.
Some roles taken up by physics graduates include Actuary, Astronomer, Business Analyst, Chartered Accountant, Clinical Scientist (Medical Physics), Data Scientist, Economist, Engineer, Financial Analyst, Geophysicist, IT Professional, Metallurgist, Meteorologist, Nanotechnologist, Nuclear Engineer, "Quant", Patent Attorney, Researcher, Software Engineer, Statistician, Teacher, and Technical Writer.
What have our graduates gone on to next?
Our Graduate Outcomes surveys are completed by graduates 15 months after they leave.
Based on data gathered from these surveys from students who graduated between 2019-2023, most graduates from our BSc Physics program were in employment (51%) or doing further study (30%). For those graduating from joint degrees that included Physics, these figures are 47% and 35%, respectively.
The vast majority of graduates from our MSc Data Science program were in employment (84%), with a further 8% doing further study.
Those who went on to further study attended institutions including Imperial College London, University College London, Newcastle University, Queen Mary University of London, Robert Gordon University, Sheffield Hallam University, and the Universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Lancaster, St Andrews, Strathclyde, and Warwick.
Our graduates from the MSc Data Science program work at institutions and companies including ADC Energy, Affinity Trust, BlueCrest, BRYTER, DC Thomson, Deloitte, Drax, Eunice Group, Everway, FDM Group, NatWest Group, Not An Agency, Sky, Skyscanner, Sodexo, Sword Group, The James Hutton Institute, Wood Mackenzie, and Zurich Insurance Group.