I’m thinking of doing a BSc in this (possibly at the OU): Has anyone done such a course and has it led anywhere career-wise?

Hi, I did physical geography BSc and then an Environmental and Ecological sciences MSc. Options afterwards were either environmental consultancy (very competitive), continued academia or voluntary work to gain practical skills. I needed money and so took the first well paying job that came my way (not environmental). Once out of the field it has proved impossible to get back. The key seemed to be practical experience – really enjoyed the courses though.

Plenty ogre geotech environment roles in construction utilities etc working in the big contractors rather than consultancy much more stable and less BS too. Starting salaries low but after 2-3 years 30+ easy 5-6 years upto 50k (chartered and managerial)

Just do Geology/geochemistry followed by some petrochemical msc. The problem the above had with getting a job is that the masters included the words “ecology” in it.

I did the OU Geoscience degree before it was discontinued due to funding changes and the Earth Sciences degree replaced it. The degree itself was hard work, long and sometimes quite lonely.
Following completion I took the first job I was offered which wasnt really related at all to my degree, however – having the degree definitely helped.
I’d say do as much research as possible on jobs relating to your degree choice and work out what you need to do to get that specific job.
I dont regret doing it, but wish I had a more clear idea of where it would lead me and what I wanted from it. 6 years is a long time to be giving up your social time, and for me I needed to study a lot to really understand it.

Lots of opportunity if you do a pretty quantitative course. Maybe fewer options if you do something more qualitative. Environmental law has opportunities but is a long slog.

Tom W bollox as usual. The arsenal has just dropped out of exploration and there are plenty of ecology rolesroles out there

Wife works in this field. Whenever they have a vacancy they get flooded with applicants including lots with PhDs even for pretty low roles. Very competitive area full of people with qualifications.

Dpfr talks sense and yes, Ecology, because I was coming from the conservation, land management side of things. Engineering and geology are a different and less tree huggy route and kind of the opposite of why I wanted to study environmental sciences. GIS training is a good way to get into a number of roles. Depends on what you are after really..

Lots of opportunity if you do a pretty quantitative course. Maybe fewer options if you do something more qualitative. Environmental law has opportunities but is a long slog.

This. Combine a sound understanding of your degree with a strong statistical element, either as part of your degree or in combination with the graduate diploma in Statistics from the Royal Statistical Society.

If you fail to get into your chosen career path, you are then in a better position to fall back on the financial industry.

Leave out as many soft subjects as you can.

I did ecology at uni followed up with a marine resource development masters. In ecology there are very few jobs and what there is is pretty low paid. The ‘fun’ jobs outside doing field work are few and far between, practical experience is key so its a case of starting at low wage on the lowest rung and building up the years of experience.

I sidestepped into environmental consultancy by coming in as a GIS consultant at the lowest level after a few years fannying around surveying trees for the council on minimum wage. I now GIS full time in consultancy, however it looks like I’m going to be made redundant in a few weeks.

Recession had a big impact on onshore jobs, which are pretty much dependent on development taking place, and the oil price and demise of marine renewables have impacted the offshore sector too. These things are all cyclical though. Public sector is still facing more cuts too.

I do know people that watch birds, survey wildcats and other amazing things for a living, so it is possible, just not easy. Depends why you are doing it and what you want to get out of it. Interesting subject to study for your degree anyway, a friend of mine did something similar at OU and is now a GISser in environmental consultancy too.

Plenty ogre geotech environment roles in construction utilities etc working in the big contractors rather than consultancy much more stable and less BS too. Starting salaries low but after 2-3 years 30+ easy 5-6 years upto 50k (chartered and managerial)

I have an MGeol in Geology 10 years experience (7 in Geotech Eng 3 in Exploration) ~£30pa doing mostly proj managment roles. Left exploration as 90% of exploration roles are overseas and market for work is massively unstable and dependent on economy / metal prices / share prices etc.

Geotechnical Engineering – Contractor side the pay is crap for a graduate science based engineering job – grads regularly start on 17-18k pa if lucky. Consultancy side pays better and gets their hands dirty less.

Learning GIS software is where it’s at for modern consultancy roles.

I do know people that watch birds, survey wildcats and other amazing things for a living, so it is possible, just not easy.

They are quite often poshos or at least very middle class types who’s parents funded them through everything, including the unpaid voluntary conservation work the year before mummy and daddy paid for them to do a PhD as they couldn’t get a studentship.

The last two posters are spot on with their advice.

I did a physical geography BSc and PhD and I’m now working in policy for Defra. It’s a great, exciting job (pay isn’t up to private sector levels though of course – EDIT although reading one_happy_hippy’s post above, maybe it is 😯 ) – worth mentioning as it hasn’t come up yet.

Earth science is a very broad subject with lots of possible careers, just see the headings for the various sectors in earthworks-jobs, for example. Natural science at Oxbridge Universities would cover any biological or physical science.

+1 to focusing on the quantitative stuff at Bachelors level – both applied and statistical maths, theoretical physics.

I went in to consultancy with a Masters and a maths-with-earth-science Bachelors degree. Worked in all sorts of roles and got interesting work. Those with Geology degrees tended to get put on site, not trained up in other roles and, IME not paid as well as those with a maths / physics background. My salary was c.$30k after 5 years, at project management level. Left to go in to academia and still get paid the same 5 years on, but much better benefits / work-life balance and I really enjoy the work. However, I agree that the construction (planning) and oil & gas work is very cyclic, working for regulators is hard because you will always feel understaffed and underpaid compared with the commercial people you are regulating, and academic science is getting squeezed very hard in the UK at the moment and the outlook seems pretty poor (compared to what we have had for the last few decades). I’ve witnessed 3 tranches of redundancies over 10 years in both industry and academia.

Any particular area you want information on?

18 years in environmental regulation and then pollution response and contaminated land remediation here.

Pretty much everything has been said above. Pre recession, pay was okay. It’s less okay now, and the overall size of the market is smaller, with less prospect of future growth due to some changes in government policy and also energy markets.

My advice is don’t.

The flip side is that it’s always nice to understand how the physical processes of the world work, it’s just pay isn’t that great.

They are quite often poshos or at least very middle class types who’s parents funded them through everything, including the unpaid voluntary conservation work the year before mummy and daddy paid for them to do a PhD as they couldn’t get a studentship.

Not in my experience, most of the ecologist subbies I’ve worked with have just been people willing to sacrifice a well paid routine job for short term contracts in random isolated parts of the country, before getting enough experience to go it alone as a specialist. They are often quite interesting characters!

I think the posh types become BBC wildlife cameramen, where a double barrel surname and good connections at the beeb are essential for getting work.

Geotechnical Consultant here and doing OK pay wise, though I started in the thick of the recession and think pay would have been much better before. It can be enjoyable, contract work is horrific though. Seems to be a shortage of engineers at the minute- we need one and pickings seem thin (if anyone wants a job near Nottingham/Derby…).

I work for a small consultancy and it’s fun, interesting, varied and you don’t have to spend all your time in the office whilst also not having to spend all your time in the pissing rain. And you don’t have to go offshore.

I think everyone on my course got good employment quickly, and only one not in the field.

I work for a large global consultancy on the geotechnical side of civil engineering (BSc Geology and MSc Geotechnical degrees). You can travel the world and be technical/PM or both. Pay can be very healthy if you are willing to take on responsibilities. There is also a significant skills shortage in the sector which is unlikely to be resolved in the short-medium term…

Hmmmm funny you should mention GIS as that is something I am interested in and currently looking at. I’ve found this:

http://www.gislearn.org/requirements.htm

There is another course at Birkbeck but the entry requirements are a bit more onerous.

I head up an Environmental Con Land/Remediation team with a major global Consultant and would echo comments by addy and munro above. Definite skills shortage as we come out of recession and pay can be good if your flexible about moving around. Took on a guy this week barely 3 yrs out of a geology degree on 24k.

7 years in engineering geology in a UK contractor job and now in Oz for a small consultancy. The UK job paid crap and had some dubious hours but to be honest I kinda enjoyed it. Oz pays much much better but loads more working away and at the moment the job markets crashed due to the slump in mining and everyones a bit nervous.
I’m considering coming home and sorting out my Eng geo masters as a kick in the butt academically and for getting chartered finally. I would second the GIS skills, mine are a bit average and its something to work on.