Career options

Broadly speaking, your options are the same as those for researchers in other disciplines; see the career options page for more details. The aim of this page is to look at some career options that may be particularly suitable for researchers in management. One important question to ask yourself is the extent to which you want to use your subject in any future career move. It's entirely your choice - you will have acquired and developed many skills during your doctorate which are complementary to the research skills and knowledge you might think define your career choice.

If you'd like to continue using your Management and would like some ideas as to how, see details of what previous Bath Management doctoral graduates have gone on to do.

This covers the most obvious choices (academic and commercial management or consultancy jobs) but there are many other options.

If you are considering management consulting, it's worth being aware that management consultancies value the high level research and problem-solving skills of doctoral graduates, and some companies, such as Mckinsey and The Boston Consulting group have specific entry routes.

You might want to move away from Management themes, but stay within your broader subject area. There are many occupations in which your PhD would be valuable, including training and development, policy, systems or business analysis, sustainability, human resources, data analytics, logistics, procurement, industrial relations and marketing, among others.

To find out more about what these jobs involve, check out the 'Information sources' section below.

Options outside of your subject

If, having got to this stage, you're not sure that you want to use your Management any more, don't despair! You have many skills and experiences that are highly valuable to employers and you can choose from the huge range of graduate jobs on offer, from structured training with large financial services firms to analysing policy for governmental departments. The key is to think of the skills you have and enjoy using, and explore occupations that use them to suggest possible career options. To find out more about different types of jobs, explore the occupational profiles on Prospects.ac.uk.

You may be interested in starting your own business, or working on a freelance basis. If this is the case, take a look at the section for researchers on working for yourself, the self-employment pages on Prospects.ac.uk, the self-employment pages on the gov.uk website and the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship website.

Information sources

Some key resources to help you research career options for management researchers:

To find out more about academic career pathways in management, see the academic careers page and talk to academics in your department.
Prospects.ac.uk - see in particular the Options with business and management studies page.
Association for Qualitative Research has a very useful list of qualitative research organisations and consultancies in a wide range of sectors.
Target jobs - has information, advice and vacancies relating to business, consulting and management.
Chartered Institute of Marketing
University of Oxford Guide to Working in Local Government & Public Administration
Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development - Professional body for fields of human resources, training etc. Includes careers information as well as a wide variety of information on training and current trends and opinions.
Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply
Chartered Institute for Logistics and Transport - includes job vacancies and a careers section.
Chartered Management Institute - engage in research and policy work on management and business themes.
Management Consultancies Association - Organisation representing consultancy industry. Includes careers resources and vacancy listings.
University of Oxford Guide to working for think tanks
Public Affairs Links - vacancies, industry information, and advice on getting into public affairs.
Market Research Society.

Jobs in industry

This is a huge sector and so we can't provide an exhaustive list. However, these are some of the more popular places to look:

Careers Service MyFuture database - look at the vacancies relevant to your subject area and also in the sections 'For PhD Students' and 'For Postdocs'. As Bath is highly targeted by the financial and consultancy sectors, this is likely to be an excellent source of opportunities. Use the 'organisations' function to identify potential employers that you may want to work for or could approach speculatively.
TotalJobs - for logistics and supply chain jobs
MarketingWeek for vacancies in advertising, PR and market research.
People Management jobs section, covering all sections of HR as well as training and development roles.
Supply Management jobs section, for jobs in purchasing and supply as well as logistics.
Top Consultant - for vacancies in management consulting.
The national press carries many vacancies, although these tend not to be entry-level positions.
Specific recruitment agencies (for a complete list visit agencycentral.co.uk).

Jobs in the public sector

Civil Service Recruitment - This site contains links to civil service vacancies. Entry into the Government Operational Research Service is via their graduate scheme or via the Civil Service Fast Stream.
Jobsgopublic contains a wide selection of jobs throughout the public sector, including education, health, local and central government and charities.
Local Government Jobs.
NHS Graduate Scheme (HR and General Management).
ThirdSectorJobs for opportunities in the charitable and voluntary sector.
The Research Councils also employ researchers in their work, to assess and review grants among other things, as do other funding bodies.
Public Affairs Links - website with vacancies in the lobbying industry.

Other pages for researchers

Career options for Management researchers

Find out about the different career options available if you're undertaking research in Management