Industry, engineering and manufacturing: R&D and other career routes
According to a recent Engineering Council report 'Mapping the UKs engineering workforce', roughly 6.9 million people are employed within the UK's engineering and manufacturing sector.
See Prospects’ more detailed overview of the engineering and manufacturing sector in the UK for more information, including the areas of engineering set to grow most rapidly over the next ten years.
As well as recruiting engineers, many engineering firms also hire graduates into other business and commercial functions such as HR, sales, marketing, project management, logistics, procurement and finance. In larger firms, these roles are often accessible through graduate training schemes. Although these schemes are often open to graduates of all levels (including undergraduates), they often take a wide range of degree subjects and can offer opportunities for Postgraduate Researchers to retrain and enter rewarding careers in areas not immediately related to their research.
Research Engineer and New Product Development
Research engineers work in R&D (Research and Development). The exact work undertaken will depend upon the field of engineering in question, for example mechanical, electrical or bio-engineering. Generally however, work focuses on the development of new products (New Product Development, or NPD) or the improvement of existing products. This distinguishes these roles from Research Scientist roles in industry, which are more focused on research and technical work.
Research Engineers work with colleagues in design teams to redesign the product, or with the production team to create the product. Other work may involve developing and evaluating new approaches to deliver projects more quickly and efficiently, using computational models to assess how designs will work, testing, presenting findings to project managers or assessing how a new product might sell once developed. If you are interested in the more commercial side of R&D, roles relating to consumer research and analysis could also be of interest, where you undertake research to make sure that a company's products are suitably responding to consumers' needs. As work in these roles varies a lot between companies, it can be a good idea to look closely at individual job descriptions to make sure they fit your motivations and interests.
Other engineering roles
There are a range of roles available in engineering industries depending on your specialism. Some of the roles listed below may not require a postgraduate degree, but the skills and experience gained through undertaking postgraduate research can put you in a good position provided that you have an understanding of how to articulate your skills and value to non-academic employers.
Many of the roles below may be advertised in two ways:
- As ‘direct hire’ roles where companies advertise and hire ‘as-and-when’ new recruits are required
- Via graduate training schemes or development programmes. Deadlines to apply for graduate schemes tend to fall in autumn, up to twelve months in advance of the start date. As a result, you should take this timescale into consideration as you may have to apply up to a year before starting, and factor in how this may fit with your submission and potential viva dates. There is information about graduate schemes on the Target Jobs website.
Here are some other options in Engineering to explore:
If companies and organisations require technical expertise to which they do not have access within their existing workforce, they may turn to engineering consultants to help. For example, if an aerospace company wants to develop a new aircraft engine, they may use a consultancy firm with experts in this area to advise on its design or how it will be made. Whilst consultancy is popular and commonplace in Civil Engineering, opportunities also exist in other branches of engineering. Engineering consultants work for a range of organisations including independent agencies, in-house consultancy departments, research departments and sometimes university departments.
Larger engineering consultancies often work with a wide range of clients across different sectors, so work may demand flexibility and the ability to manage multiple different projects and simultaneously and solve a range of diverse engineering problems. Consequently, work in consultancy is likely to offer challenge and variety, involving dealing with a range of clients, planning, managing, designing and supervising the construction of projects and products. There are often opportunities to progress to running projects as a project manager, for which a postgraduate research degree and the skills involved can put you in a good position.
Examples of engineering consultancy firms include Frazer Nash, Cambridge Consultants, Fichtner, Mott Macdonald, Arup and Atkins
If you have a background in engineering and are familiar with research practices, then engineer roles aren’t the only opportunity for work in R&D.
The UK Government offers companies R&D tax credits for investing in innovation. These credits can be used to fund further research and development. R&D Tax Advisers or Consultants use knowledge and experience of both engineering and tax legislation to help companies secure funding and R&D Tax Credits. Work in this area requires a thorough understanding of the area of engineering in question, plus the ability to write successful grant applications and claims. As a result, the skills of Postgraduate Researchers map across well to this profession, which offers an alternative for Engineering PGRs who want to apply their engineering knowledge in a slightly different way from the more traditional move ‘into industry.’ Plus, many engineering industries are involved, from mechanical and Aerospace to Civil, Structural and Materials engineering.
Firms like TBAT, ForrestBrown , Source Advisors, and Ayming UK offer opportunities for engineering graduates to train as R&D Tax Consultants.
Field Applications Engineer/ Applications Scientist
If you have an interest in engineering but also a mind for business, and are looking for an alternative to a role in R&D, then working in Field Applications could be an option for you.
Field Applications Engineers come in after the R&D work has been done, in the pre-sales and post-sales stages of product development. When an organisation buys or wants to buy one of their company’s products, Field Applications Engineers provide them with technical support and training in how to use the new technology. They may also consult clients during the process of design, testing and building to ensure that products and solutions meet required specifications, and write manuals for new products. Similar roles exist in the scientific world too, where Applications Scientists provide support to client companies who purchase lab equipment, reagents and other scientific products.
A PhD can be a useful asset for Applications Engineer and Scientist roles as the writing, editing and presentation skills gained as a postgraduate researcher are crucial to the role and also need to be balanced with excellent technical abilities. Other important skills include:
- Problem solving/ ability to troubleshoot
- Interpersonal skills
- Customer service skills
- Willingness to travel
Below are some job profiles outlining the principal roles across a range of engineering disciplines. Each one links to further information on career guidance websites like Prospects:
Job hunting resources