Physiology opens up many careers in science and healthcare, with employers such as the NHS or the armed forces

Job options

Jobs directly related to your degree include:

• Biomedical scientist
• Clinical research associate
• Clinical scientist, audiology
• Clinical scientist, physiological sciences
• Exercise physiologist
• Pharmacologist
• Research scientist (medical)

Jobs where your degree would be useful include:

• Clinical scientist, cardiac sciences
• Medical sales representative
• Physiotherapist
• Science writer
• Secondary school teacher
• Therapeutic radiographer

Work experience

It's useful to find work experience in an area related to the career you'd like to enter. A placement in a hospital department is valuable when applying for clinical physiology posts. Some degrees offer this type of experience as part of the course, but you can always be proactive and arrange a placement yourself. Visit hospital departments, or make speculative applications for placements in relevant departments and clinics.

Laboratory experience and knowledge of the range of techniques used can also be helpful, particularly for research posts.

Any other part-time, vacation or volunteering work which demonstrates your interest in your chosen field, is also useful.

Typical employers

The major scientific employers of physiology graduates are:

• research centres and academic institutions
• pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies
• the National Health Service (NHS) - specialist areas include cardiac sciences, audiology, neurophysiology, critical care science, respiratory physiology, sleep physiology and gastrointestinal (GI) physiology
• private sector hospitals, medical centres and healthcare organisations.

The armed forces also employs clinical physiologists. Further employment opportunities can be found with scientific publishers, educational settings such as secondary schools or colleges - as a science teacher, and with scientific sales and marketing companies.

Non-scientific employers include:

• management consultancies
• law and accountancy firms
• banks and other financial institutions
• retail companies.

Skills for your CV

Studying physiology helps you develop skills in planning, conducting/evaluating experiments, and researching and interpreting scientific literature. You also develop the ability to communicate science to both peers and non-scientists.

You gain a wide range of skills sought by both scientific and non-scientific employers, including:

• analytical and problem-solving
• using judgement, decision-making and questioning
• the ability to identify, select, organise and communicate information and data
• computing, statistics and numeracy
• attention to detail
• planning, organisation and time management
• teamworking and collaborating between groups
• persistence and resilience to retry experiments.