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Choosing a career

I am in year 10 and considering different career options after having a career meeting. So far I am particularly interested in medicine (becoming a doctor) or law (becoming a commercial barrister). I want to consider some other job options.

How do you find a career that suits you?

I want to consider some other jobs (particularly related to science) to see if they could interest me. Although I value doing a career that I would enjoy over doing one simply because it has a high salary, I want to find a job that would let me live comfortably and earn a substantial amount of money.

What are some high-paying science jobs (I love science however many scientists are underpaid in the UK)?

What are some general high-paying STEM jobs?

Reply 1

Pedr0

Original post by VoiidDev

In my anecdotal experience, software development and tech in general is where the money's at in STEM (at the moment), particularly if you manage to get a tech job in the finance sector; civil/structural engineering is underpaid compared to Europe/USA; science varies (academia/research is underpaid but e.g., chemical engineering pays quite well); maths can get you into high paid careers like actuarial and other finance related roles.

Medicine is a difficult and unrewarding career path for many years and junior doctors at the moment are having an especially tough time - don't do medicine unless you're absolutely 100% sure about it I'd say.

Another thing - 'Science' is a very vague keyword, do you have a particular interest in biology, chemistry, physics; and if so which aspects of those? Thinking about that could give you some idea of career paths to look at. Plus there are lots of different roles you could go into after doing a degree in one of the sciences, for example if you were to do a Physics degree at uni, as well as being a research scientist, you could work as a C&I engineer, acoustic consultant, in radiation protection, etc.

Prospects.ac.uk is a great site to find careers to research, check the 'What can I do with my degree?' page and look at the STEM-related ones; or look on Gradcracker (STEM graduate job site) for job titles then search for those on Prospects. Prospects goes into what your day-to-day might be like, and what skills you'd need to use, for a job, so you can use that info to consider whether you'd enjoy that career long-term.

Lastly here's a good article on finding a career that fits you from the website 80,000 Hours.

hope this helps