Longitudinal study of physicists' careers

In March 2006 the Institute began a five year longitudinal study of final year physics undergraduates. Very little is currently known about the career paths of physics graduates who take up jobs outside of physics - information that is vital when planning projects aimed at encouraging participation in physics.

Each subsequent year a new cohort of final year undergraduate physics students have been canvassed to determine their career intentions and the past participants are re-contacted in order to map their career paths.

Wide-ranging data has been collected so that we will be able to consider the effect that variables, such as gender, ethnicity, family background, caring responsibilities and institution, have on career intentions, actual career followed, field of work and salary.

We will collect our final round of data in Summer 2010 so that we will have five years of information to draw on. Expect our findings to be published in Spring 2011.

Data Reports