Explore & Discover

Role Description

Entry requirements

You’ll usually need a foundation degree, HNC, HND or degree in a relevant subject, like applied chemistry, applied physics, materials engineering, materials science, or technology.

You could also do a degree specialising in a group of materials or their commercial use, like biomaterials, metallurgy, polymer science, or sports and materials science

You could get into this job through an apprenticeship, and then work your way up

The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining has information about careers and qualifications in this field.

Skills required

You’ll need:

creative problem-solving skills

maths, science and IT skills

communication and presentation skills

the ability to prioritise and plan effectively

What you'll do

You’ll research materials used in industry, like carbon fibre reinforced plastic, polymers, ceramics or alloys, and test their behaviours under different conditions.

You’ll usually work in a particular area, like metals, coatings or chemicals. 

Your day-to-day duties could include:

researching new ways to combine materials

analysing test data, using computer modelling software

developing prototypes for new products

designing manufacturing processes that use new materials

investigating the reasons behind component or structural failures

supervising a team of technicians

writing reports 

You’ll use non-destructive testing methods to investigate materials, like electrical conductivity, or tolerance to heat or corrosion.

You might work with nanomaterials like graphene and phosphorene, and identify where their properties could be put to use, like in computer electronics or biological sensors.

Salary

Starter: £20,000 to £26,000

Experienced: £26,500 to £40,000

Highly Experienced: over £45,000

These figures are a guide.

Working hours, patterns and environment

You’ll usually work 35 to 40 hours a week, Monday to Friday, with some overtime to meet deadlines.

You’ll be based in an office, laboratory or manufacturing environment. 

You may have to travel between sites.

Career path and progression

With experience, you could move into project management or technical sales. You could also specialise in a particular material, or work in research and consultancy.

Role Description

1. Entry requirements

There are no set requirements but competition is strong so you’ll usually need a foundation degree or a degree.

If you want to go into quantitative work (analysis based on numbers), these degrees may be useful:

• maths
• statistics
• business/management
• economics
• For qualitative work (analysis based on language), useful degrees include:
• psychology
• sociology
• geography
• social sciences
• anthropology

English or marketing degrees are also useful, as well as sciences or engineering for some specialist industrial jobs. 

You’ll also find it useful to have previous experience in marketing, sales or advertising, or as a market research interviewer. 

You could get a paid internship or join a graduate training scheme. You could also start as a research assistant in an agency and then take further qualifications.

The Market Research Society (MRS) has more information about careers in market research.

2. Skills required

You’ll need:

excellent number and IT skills

the ability to analyse and interpret statistics

written communication skills for report writing and designing questionnaires

creative problem-solving skills

accuracy and attention to detail

organisational and time-management skills

initiative and teamwork skills

3. What you'll do

As a market research executive, you’ll specialise in one type of research – consumer or industrial, social or political. You’ll carry out research using one of 2 main methods:

quantitative – analysis based on numbers, from surveys of large samples of people

qualitative – analysis based on language, from focus groups and in-depth questionnaires

Depending on the type of research, in your work you’ll usually:

meet clients to discuss research projects

come up with a plan or proposal and present it to the client

manage a budget

design questionnaires and organise surveys

brief interviewers and researchers

monitor progress of surveys

analyse data and present results to the client

advise the client how they can best use the research

Most jobs involve a lot of computer work, for background research and to analyse information and produce reports.

4. Salary

Starter: £20,000 to £25,000

Experienced: £25,000 to £35,000

Highly Experienced: £60,000 (senior market research executive)

These figures are a guide.

5. Working hours, patterns and environment

If you work as a quantitative researcher in-house for a company, you’ll usually work in an office with standard hours, Monday to Friday, with occasional overtime to meet project deadlines.

If you work as a qualitative researcher, you’ll often work evenings and weekends to travel to visit clients and focus groups. You may need a driving licence and a car.

6. Career path and progression

With experience, you could progress into management, or become a self-employed market research consultant. 

You could also move into the promotional side of advertising or marketing.

Role Description

1. Entry requirements

You may find it useful to have GCSEs at grades 9 to 4 (A* to C) or equivalent, in subjects like English and maths.

A qualification in administration or secretarial skills may help. Employers also value experience, which you could get by temping or volunteering.

You could get into this job through an apprenticeship.

2. Skills required

You'll need:

• an excellent telephone manner
• skills in IT and administration
• the ability to use your initiative and solve problems
• organisational and time management skills
• 3. What you'll do
• You could work in the public or private sectors or for a charity.
• Your day-to-day tasks could include:
• being the first point of contact for visitors, phone calls and emails
• arranging meetings and taking minutes
• diary management and making travel arrangements 
• producing letters, reports, spreadsheets and invoices
• updating records on IT systems
• photocopying, printing and filing
• handling confidential information

4. Salary

Starter: £14,000 to £16,000

Experienced: £17,000 to £20,000

Highly Experienced: £25,000

These figures are a guide.

5. Working hours, patterns and environment

You'll usually work in an office, 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday.

You could also work part-time or get temporary work.

6. Career path and progression

With experience, you could become a personal assistant or office manager.

You could also move into human resources work, or train as a legal or medical secretary.

Role Description

1. Entry requirements

There are no set entry requirements, but some employers may ask for a good standard of general education.

Some employers may prefer you to have previous experience on a production line, and forklift training could be useful for some jobs.

You may have to take a test to assess your practical skills.

You could get into this job through an apprenticeship.

2. Skills required

You’ll need:

• good practical skills 
• the ability to work quickly and methodically 
• the ability to concentrate while doing repetitive tasks 
• the ability to follow instructions

3. What you'll do

Your day-to-day tasks may include:

• measuring, grading and feeding batches of raw materials into production machinery 
• operating production line equipment, like a conveyor line in a canning factory 
• assembling goods on a production line, like fitting circuit boards into computers 
• reporting equipment faults to maintenance staff 
• finishing products, for example applying protective coatings
• monitoring the production process and carrying out basic testing and quality checks 
• storing goods and raw materials in the factory or warehouse 
• using lifting equipment and forklift trucks 
• packing goods ready for shipment
• cleaning and maintaining work areas and machinery

You’ll usually work as part of a team under the supervision of a shift leader, carrying out several tasks within the same shift.

4. Salary

Starter: £14,000 to £17,000

Experienced: £18,000 to £20,000 

You may get extra payments for unsocial shifts and overtime, and productivity bonuses.

These figures are a guide.

5. Working hours, patterns and environment

You’ll usually cover a variety of shifts, including days, nights and weekends. Overtime is often available.

You’ll mainly work in a factory on a production line. You may spend a lot of your time standing while operating machinery, or sitting at a workbench or assembly line.

You’ll usually wear protective clothing, like overalls and safety shoes.

6. Career path and progression

With experience, you could be promoted to shift supervisor or move into quality control.

Role Description

Magazine Journalist:

Your day-to-day tasks may include:

• going to meetings to plan the content of the magazine 
• suggesting ideas for articles 
• interviewing and researching to collect information for articles 
• writing articles to suit the magazine’s style 
• keeping up-to-date with developments and trends in the magazine's subject area 
• working as a critic, reviewing things like films, food or concerts

Newspaper Journalist

You could be reporting on council meetings and school fêtes for a local paper, or on general elections and world events for the national press.

Your day-to-day tasks may include:

• investigating a story as soon as it breaks
• following up potential leads and developing new contacts
• interviewing people face-to-face and over the phone
• attending press conferences
• recording meetings and interviews using recording equipment or shorthand
• coming up with ideas for stories and features
• writing up articles in a style that will appeal to the reader
• sub-editing other reporters' articles for publication
• writing up articles for online publication

Broadcast Journalist

You could be reporting on council meetings and school fêtes for a local paper, or on general elections and world events for the national press.

Your day-to-day tasks may include:

• investigating a story as soon as it breaks
• following up potential leads and developing new contacts
• interviewing people face-to-face and over the phone
• attending press conferences
• recording meetings and interviews using recording equipment or shorthand
• coming up with ideas for stories and features
• writing up articles in a style that will appeal to the reader
• sub-editing other reporters' articles for publication
• writing up articles for online publication

Role Training

There are no set requirements, but most new magazine journalists have an HND, degree or equivalent qualification. 

Paid or unpaid work experience is a good way to build up your skills and a portfolio of published work to show employers. You could gain this with magazines or other publications, including student papers, fanzines, charity newsletters, websites or blogs.

You’ll usually need knowledge of the subject area your magazine deals with. 

You may be able to get into this job through an apprenticeship.

The National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) and the Professional Publishers Association (PPA) run courses and have more information about careers in magazine journalism.

Role Description

You could work for sales and marketing agencies, or in marketing departments of organisations like financial services or manufacturing. 

You could also work for fund-raising charities, heritage organisations or the education sector.

Your day-to-day tasks could include:

• researching and analysing market trends and your target markets
• creating marketing and social media strategies
• planning and managing the launch of new products and services
• setting budgets, targets and timelines
• working with in-house or external agencies to produce attractive campaigns that increase business
• organising and attending events to meet new and existing clients 
• managing budgets and reporting on the effectiveness of campaigns
• managing a team of marketing executives

Role Training

There are no set entry requirements. You'll usually need 3 to 5 years' experience as a marketing executive, sales manager or public relations officer.

You may need a degree in marketing or business, or a professional marketing qualification.

Another option is to start as a junior marketing manager or marketing apprentice and work your way up.

Role Description

Skills required

You'll need:

• financial skills
• excellent negotiating and networking skills
• leadership and management skills

What you'll do

Your day-to-day tasks may include:

• deciding what goods, services and equipment are needed
• monitoring and forecasting stock levels
• researching and finding new products and suppliers
• assessing tenders from potential suppliers
• negotiating prices and agreeing contracts
• keeping up to date with market trends

In larger organisations you may run a purchasing department and lead a team of buyers and administrators. In smaller companies, you may combine purchasing with other management duties.

Role Training

There are no set requirements, but experience in a company's purchasing department could help. 

You may also be able to get into this role through a company's management training scheme.

Role Description

Entry requirements

There are no set requirements but some employers may expect you to have a degree. Relevant subjects include:

advertising
media and communications
digital marketing
journalism
public relations
business management
You could get into this job without a degree if you have the skills and experience in areas like marketing, advertising or PR. 

You can do college courses in social media and business. 

You could also start as an assistant manager and work your way up. 

You’ll usually need some knowledge and experience of social media. To get experience you could:

manage your own social media profiles
volunteer to manage social media for a charitable organisation
ask to get involved in social media sites of the company you already work for
You’ll need excellent IT skills as you’ll be using social media software and tools. You’ll also need knowledge of search engine optimisation (SEO) methods and ‘key’ or ‘searched for’ words to drive more users to your social media site.

Experience of graphic design and digital editing software can help. You can use these skills to make your social media posts better by adding videos, photos and infographics.

You could get into this job through a creative and digital media apprenticeship.

iCould has a video interview with a social media assistant.

Skills required

You’ll need:

an eye for detail and the ability to work accurately
the ability to deal with more than one task at a time
creativity
presentation skills
an analytical approach to data
writing skills

What you'll do

You’ll monitor and upload content to sites like:

Facebook and Twitter
Instagram and Pinterest
YouTube and Vine
Your day-to-day duties may include:

updating social media sites
writing blogs, articles and posts
responding to social media posts and developing discussions
checking online for company mentions and customer feedback
searching for interesting posts, news and articles to attract site visitors
overseeing competitions and campaigns promoting your company
taking part in conferences and group chat relevant to your industry or company
educating other staff on social media use
promoting social media use within your company
developing strategies to increase your audience
using social media tools like Hootsuite, TweetDeck or Buffer to manage multiple sites
using web tracking tools like Google Analytics, Social Report or Bitly

Salary

Starter: £23,000

Experienced: £25,000 to £35,000

Highly Experienced: £75,000 (head social media manager)

These figures are a guide.

Working hours, patterns and environment

You’ll usually work normal office hours, 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. You may need to work evenings and weekends when working on a campaign or with deadlines.

If you’re freelance, you may work longer hours depending on the needs of your clients and the amount of work you take on.

You’ll be based in an office and spend a lot of time working on a computer. You may also attend meetings and make presentations about your work to clients or colleagues.

Career path and progression

With experience, you could move into managing social media for larger companies or progress to a senior or head social media manager job.