Whether you're interested in an academic career or working in other sectors, Careers and Placements can provide advice, information and guidance to help you explore your options.

Postgraduate researcher career journey

During your PhD you will have a range of opportunities to develop your research and professional skills, but it can sometimes be difficult to find out what’s available, when you could do it, and whether it’s right for you. The postgraduate researcher career journey aims to support you from the point when you start your PhD, through to the later stages of career decision making and applications.

A range of opportunities is included, with a suggested timeline linked to your PhD progression, focused around three key themes: Researching your career options; Academic and professional development; and Applications and recruitment.

The Journey is interactive – click on the links to be taken to the relevant web pages:

PGR Career Journey 2023/24 (PDF , 120kb)

Get advice from Careers and Placements

Careers and Placements offer careers advice appointments specifically for postgraduate research students These can be use for careers advice and application/interview support. Find out about these and the other appointments available to you. Appointments can be booked online via Handshake.

Researcher development

Enrol on the Career Management for Early Career Academic Researchers MOOC on Futurelearn. This free course is available from October to June.

See more employability and career information on Employability and career development.

Transferable skills

The Building Research and Innovation Capacity (BRIC) Team can help you gain transferable skills through information resources, a training and development programme, and support with career planning. Find out more about skills training, or explore their range of resources through the VLE (log-in required). 

International Students

The Graduate Visa is an immigration route which allows international students to stay in the UK for three years for work experience, after successfully completing a PhD. Once you have received your results the University’s visa team will notify you when you can make a graduate visa application, which must be done from within the UK.

Working in the UK after your studies