Industry Sectors

Role Description

1. Entry requirements

You'll usually need a foundation degree, HND or degree in a subject like marketing, advertising or business.

Experience as a marketing assistant, or working in sales or public relations, could help you get into this job without a degree.

You could also get into marketing through an apprenticeship.

The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) has more information about qualifications and training.

2. Skills required

You'll need:

excellent organisational, planning and IT skills

strong communication and negotiating ability

creativity and writing skills

3. What you'll do

You could work for sales or 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 may involve:

doing research on customer and market trends

identifying target markets and possible sponsors

creating and planning marketing campaigns

using automated systems for email campaigns and customer management

writing and editing for print and multiple online uses

organising promotions and events to meet clients, suppliers and the media

managing campaign websites and social media

managing budgets and monitoring the effectiveness of campaigns

4. Salary

Starter: £18,000 to £22,000

Experienced: £22,000 to £30,000

Highly Experienced: £30,000 to £35,000 (senior)

These figures are a guide.

5. Working hours, patterns and environment

You'll usually work 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. You may occasionally work evenings and weekends.

You'll be based in an office but may travel to meet clients and attend events.

You may need a full driving licence.

6. Career path and progression

With experience, you could become a marketing manager.

You could also become a freelance marketing consultant, or move into areas like advertising, sales or public relations.

The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) has details of professional development.

Role Description

Skills required

You’ll need:

• excellent communication and listening skills 
• empathy and the ability to deal with people in distress 
• honesty and integrity 
• the ability to remain calm in stressful situations 
• problem-solving and decision-making skills

What you'll do

You’ll see people who have psychological difficulties like anxiety, depression, phobias or eating disorders.

Your day-to-day tasks may include:

• assessing clients’ needs through interviews, tests and observations
• deciding on the most appropriate form of treatment, like therapy, counselling or advice
• planning treatment programmes
• working with clients in groups or individually
• writing reports and going to case conferences
• carrying out research
• You’ll work closely with other professionals, like doctors and probation officers.

Role Training

• a British Psychological Society (BPS) accredited degree in psychology, or completion of an approved conversion course 
• Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership (GBC) of the BPS 
• a doctorate in clinical psychology 
• work experience (often a minimum of 12 months) as a psychology assistant or research assistant, or in a relevant caring role 
• registration with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) 
• clearance from the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS)

Role Description

Entry requirements

There are no set requirements. You’ll be expected to have relevant office skills, like email, using the internet and computer packages like Excel. 

Good maths skills are important, and some employers may also expect you to have GCSEs (A* to C), or equivalent.

Experience in payroll isn’t always essential, but a background in bookkeeping and accounts could help improve your job prospects. 

The International Association of Book-keepers (IAB) and The Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT) offer introductory courses in bookkeeping and payroll.

You could also get into this job through an apprenticeship.

Skills required

You’ll need:

confidence with numbers
good spoken and written communication skills
a high level of accuracy and attention to detail
good organisational and time management skills

What you'll do

You’ll work in a company’s accounts team, or for a payroll bureau that provides payroll services for other companies. You may work to strict payment deadlines.

Your day-to-day duties will usually include:

checking how many hours employees have worked
calculating and issuing pay by cash, cheque or electronic transfer
deducting tax and national insurance payments
processing holiday, sick and maternity pay, and expenses
calculating overtime, shift payments and pay increases
answering staff queries about timesheets or pay slips
issuing P45s and other tax forms
You may also work with your company’s human resources department, and be expected to do general administrative work like filing, photocopying and typing.

Salary

Starter: £15,000 to £18,000

Experienced: £20,000 to £26,000

Highly Experienced: £28,000

These figures are a guide.

Working hours, patterns and environment

You’ll usually work 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. Part-time and temporary work are available.

You’ll usually be based in an office, and spend most of your time working at a computer.

Career path and progression

With experience, you could progress to payroll supervisor or manager.

Role Description

1. Entry requirements

There are no set entry requirements.

Previous experience in sales, marketing or customer services, or the right skills and attitude, could help you get into this type of work. 

Some new recruitment consultants are graduates. You can enter recruitment with any degree, although some employers may prefer one more closely related to the industry they find staff for, like human resources, marketing or public relations.

You could get into this role through an apprenticeship.

The Institute of Recruitment Professionals has more information about becoming a recruitment consultant.

2. Skills required

You’ll need:

• excellent communication and customer service skills 
• good sales and negotiation skills 
• the ability to work under pressure and meet targets 
• good organisational and administrative skills

3. What you'll do

Your day-to-day duties might include:

• ‘cold calling’ companies to generate new business 
• interviewing and testing job seekers, to create a pool of people ready to fill vacancies 
• matching candidates to suitable jobs 
• screening and shortlisting candidates before employers interview them 
• meeting targets for the number of vacancies taken or the number of people placed into jobs 
• keeping records of clients, employers and vacancies 
• negotiating your agency’s fees 
• ‘headhunting' – finding and approaching candidates for executive or specialist jobs

4. Salary

Starter: £16,000 to £20,000 (trainee)

Experienced: £38,000 

Highly Experienced: £60,000 (manager) 

Most recruitment consultants earn a basic salary plus commission.

These figures are a guide.

5. Working hours, patterns and environment

You’ll usually work standard office hours. In some jobs you may need to work outside office hours, contacting clients or interviewing candidates.

The work is mainly office-based, but you’ll also spend some of your time visiting your client companies.

6. Career path and progression

With experience you could move into business development or management, or set up your own agency.

Role Description

1. Entry requirements

There are no set requirements. You could start this career with a background in journalism, marketing or IT, or with business experience.

You’ll usually need experience of writing content, although not necessarily online. You could gain this by:

• blogging or writing on social media 
• writing marketing materials or newsletters 
• volunteering for a student newspaper, charity or community group

Knowledge of web design, desktop publishing and photo editing will be useful. A portfolio of work to show employers would also be helpful.

You could also take a course that would teach you some of the skills needed for producing web content, like journalism, publishing, media and communications, or PR and marketing.

2. Skills required

You’ll need:

• organisational skills and the ability to meet deadlines 
• financial management and negotiating skills 
• confident presentation skills 
• the ability to build relationships with clients and partners 
• an excellent grasp of English grammar, punctuation and spelling 
• the ability to write for a target audience 
• creative skills to find interesting ways to present information and to generate new ideas 
• attention to detail, for example when proofreading

3. What you'll do

You’ll work on websites or company intranets.

Your day-to-day duties might include:

• taking a lead role in maintaining and developing a site 
• attending meetings to plan and develop site content, style and appearance 
• using web content management systems (CMS) 
• analysing website usage statistics 
• writing reports for senior managers, clients and partnership organisations 
• carrying out quality assurance checks on content 
• reporting technical problems to IT support staff 
• The type of content you might work on could include:
• e-commerce, like online shopping or banking 
• product advertising and retail catalogues 
• local, national and international news reports 
• social media output 
• college and university websites 
• online public information and government services
• In larger companies, you might manage an editorial team. You’ll have a more 'hands on' role in smaller organisations.
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4. Salary

Starter: £25,000 to £28,000

Experienced: £32,000 to £40,000

Highly Experienced: £55,000 or more

These figures are a guide.

5. Working hours, patterns and environment

You’ll usually work 35 to 40 hours a week, Monday to Friday. You may sometimes need to work overtime to meet deadlines.

Most of your work will be office-based at a computer. There may be some out-of-office duties, like attending meetings with clients or partners.

6. Career path and progression

You could progress into information management, search engine optimisation (SEO), technical web development or wider information planning and policy roles.

Role Description

Entry requirements

There are no set qualifications but you'll usually need:

basic English and maths skills
good eyesight and colour-normal vision
a good driving record and the correct licence
You may need to be over 21 and have held a full driving licence for at least 12 months.

Many vans are less than 3,500kg. If you drive vehicles between 3,500kg and 7,000kg, you may need further training depending on when you passed your driving test.

You could get into this job through an apprenticeship.

Skills required

You'll need:

excellent practical driving skills
the ability to work quickly and to tight deadlines
lifting and carrying skills
the ability to complete record sheets and paperwork

What you'll do

You may deliver parcels, letters and documents, groceries, furniture or equipment. This could be for postal or courier services, supermarkets or retailers. Your vehicle could vary in size, depending on the load and your licence.

Your day-to-day tasks may include:

collecting goods from a depot, warehouse or pick-up point
loading the vehicle in an order that matches the deliveries you'll make
planning the route
greeting customers, getting signatures and giving invoices when you deliver
recording mileage and fuel you buy
updating delivery records
returning undelivered items

Salary

Starter: £14,000

Experienced: £20,000

Highly Experienced: up to £27,000

Some employers offer bonuses for attendance and for reaching work targets.

These figures are a guide.

Working hours, patterns and environment

You'll usually work between 36 and 48 hours a week, including evenings and weekends. Some courier companies may expect you to drive through the night.

For safety reasons there are legal limits on drivers' hours, depending on the type of vehicle.

For some jobs, you'll be given a uniform and specialist clothing.

The job is physically demanding.

Career path and progression

With experience, you could complete training for a large goods vehicle (LGV) licence for opportunities in freight transport and tanker driving.

If you take specialist training, like defensive driving and personal security, you could drive vehicles containing cash and valuable items. You'd also usually need a Security Industry Association (SIA) licence for this.

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

1. Entry requirements

You'll usually need GCSEs at grades 9 to 4 (A* to C) or A levels, as well as experience or industry qualifications.

You could study for a foundation degree, HND or degree which includes quality control options, for example in production management.

You could get into this job as an apprentice and work your way up to a quality control job.

2. Skills required

You'll need:

• the ability to use your technical knowledge to design policies
• organisational skills

3. What you'll do

You could work in many industries. You'll usually work in a team supervised by a quality manager.

Your day-to-day tasks may include:

• dealing with customer feedback and complaints
• assessing and rating suppliers
• designing, reviewing and updating quality control policies
• training new staff
• producing reports

You'll also have duties specific to your industry. For example, in manufacturing and engineering this could include:

• finding and fixing faults at each stage of the production process
• testing samples in a lab
• making sure labelling is accurate
• checking that production methods meet legislation guidelines
• inspecting materials for defects and using methods like non-destructive testing (NDT)

4. Salary

Starter: £12,500 to £15,000

Experienced: £18,000 to £25,000

These figures are a guide.

5. Working hours, patterns and environment

You'll usually work 35 to 40 hours, Monday to Friday. In manufacturing, you may need to work evening and weekend shifts.

You could work in an office, laboratory or factory production area.

6. Career path and progression

With experience and training you could move into supervisory, management or research jobs.