Increasingly recognised as a vital part of public and individual health, nutrition graduates use their skills to help people and communities make the right dietary choices

Job options

Jobs directly related to your degree include:

• Animal nutritionist
• Community education officer
• Food technologist
• Health improvement practitioner
• International aid/development worker
• Medical sales representative
• Naturopath
• Nutritional therapist
• Nutritionist

Jobs where your degree would be useful include:

• Catering manager
• Chef
• Dietitian
• Health service manager
• Herbalist
• Personal trainer
• Product/process development scientist

Work experience

Work experience will help you to decide which area of nutrition you want to concentrate on, as well as giving you valuable experience and contacts. For public health or community education, any community work, whether nutrition-related or not, will help develop your skills.

Hospitals and NHS Trusts often offer work experience, as do large pharmaceutical, food and sport and fitness companies. Businesses value any commercial experience - especially food-related work, such as hospitality and catering.

Whatever your future ambitions, it'll be useful for your career if you can get some experience of working in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors as you could end up working across all three.

Typical employers

You could work for a multinational food manufacturer or retailer, or for a manufacturer of animal feeds. In international development, employers include government or non-government aid agencies and international charities. If you're looking for a career in sports nutrition, employers can include sport and leisure companies, sports clubs or sport professional associations.

In public health, typical employers include local authorities, government departments (such as the Department of Health or the Department for International Development) or the NHS. In community work, your employer is likely to be a voluntary organisation or a small not-for-profit community interest company.

For a career in research, you could work in a university, for a research body or for a large company. There are also opportunities to work as a self-employed nutritionist.

Skills for your CV

A nutrition degree develops your knowledge of the science of nutrients and their effects, as well as the social factors which influence nutrition. It covers food science, food production and physiology, as well as legislation, psychosocial issues and behaviour.

It also develops your skills in:

• rigorous scientific research
• behaviour change and motivation
• understanding the business environment
• assessment
• interpreting data
• laboratory techniques
• giving presentations.