How practical is a Physics degree?

Sorry I should've defined myself better, I meant to say that people tell me Physics graduates aren't very employable. What are you doing now if you don't mind me asking?

Sorry I should've defined myself better, I meant to say that people tell me Physics graduates aren't very employable. What are you doing now if you don't mind me asking?

People tell you wrong. Physics graduates are very employable. If you want to go down the engineering route, do an engineering degree. Since you say your passion is physics, then I doubt that's the case. An engineering degree may well leave you with better prospects of getting into engineering (or something closely related to that field), but a degree in physics will (IMO) give you more flexibility. Like Manitude suggests, there's nothing to stop you from choosing physics now and specialising later.

Can you give examples of the jobs a physics grad would go into, not saying youre wrong btw, just wondering

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After medicine and law, physics graduates have the highest salaries of any. Whoever told you they were not employable was talking out of their *!%£!

Define "practical"
If you do a physics degree you will not be as good at designing and building things as an engineering graduate, but that's not to say you will not have practical skills. You have to do at least some lab work to get a physics degree accredited by the IOP, but many universities allow you the 'specialise' in experimental physics (which is what I did), which gives you a whole ton of skills useful for solving real world problems, performing experiments and learning how to use unfamiliar equipment.
Whoever told you studying physics is a waste of time probably doesn't know what they're talking about.

I've heard that a lot of employers are very keen to hire physics graduates on the basis that it's easier to teach physics graduates X rather than teach X graduates physics. (X being whatever the employer deals with).
I know that it's very possible to do an engineering masters after a physics degree, I know two people doing exactly this. But I can't imagine going the other way would be so easy.

Sorry I should've defined myself better, I meant to say that people tell me Physics graduates aren't very employable. What are you doing now if you don't mind me asking?

People tell you wrong. Physics graduates are very employable. If you want to go down the engineering route, do an engineering degree. Since you say your passion is physics, then I doubt that's the case. An engineering degree may well leave you with better prospects of getting into engineering (or something closely related to that field), but a degree in physics will (IMO) give you more flexibility. Like Manitude suggests, there's nothing to stop you from choosing physics now and specialising later.

They are very employable, but my hunch is that if you want to have a career thats actually related to physics, then an engineering degree is better suited. Anyone agree/disagree?

that sounds very vague, what exactly do you mean by this?

how does that work?

can you give some examples

that sounds very vague, what exactly do you mean by this?

That makes no sense. If you want a career related to physics, do a physics degree.

By doing physics you can choose later which area of the subject you would like to specialise in. By doing engineering you're already narrowing down your options. I think a physics degree keeps more doors open than an engineering degree

.

an engineering job is related to physics, since its based on physics knowledge, its not something like finance or retail for example which has no relation whatsoever with physics

I'm not 100% sure on this, but it does seems to me as though theres more jobs out there for engineering which require an MEng degree in engineering, than jobs which requires a physics degree specifically - I can't think of that many jobs here apart from research and teaching, and even then you could say these jobs exist in engineering as well.