What to do with a Maths Degree?

After a few suggestions on this one.

My daughter graduated this year with a First Class Hons Degree in Maths from Royal Holloway (University of London).

She’s now ready for the next step and to enter the big bad world of work. Slight problem, she’s not entirely sure what she wants to do.

She isn’t keen on teaching, before that’s suggested. She’s had a part time job teaching drama to children for several years so realises she perhaps doesn’t have the patience for instilling knowledge in the next generation.

Finance seems an obvious direction but what she really enjoys is the actual problem solving that she has found in her university degree. She did briefly consider a Masters in Quantitive Finance but the additional student debt and the feeling she was just putting things off decided her against this.

She’s only just turned 21, state educated and is a female with a qualification in STEM so presumably would tick a lot of boxes for employers. She’s also worked customer service jobs throughout her university summers so not work shy.

So can anyone inspire us with suggestions of areas of interest that she should take a look at. Or company/science institute graduate schemes she should investigate. South West London and wants to remain close to home.

Sorry if this sounds like some kind of job wanted stealth ad, but some career direction suggestions or what other forum users (or indeed friends or family of theirs) did in this position would be genuinely helpful.

a friends brother has a maths degree and became an actuary.

My mate did a PhD then went off to write algorithms for de beers to find diamonds on the sea bed.

He was very enthusiastic about the job.

I assume he is now minted

The people I know with them are government statisticians (which covers everything from health to the environment to economics) or have done research on ocean currents at the Scottish Association of Marine Science.

Get into finance, quantitative analyst etc.

Nuclear, there’s a LOT of maths involved that goes hand in hand with reactor physics. EDF has a grad scheme.

Data science, other AI related activities.

Flood and climate change stuff?

Including Engineering, modelling, computational fluid dynamics, walking round poking things with sticks.

Any idea which bits of maths. Like applied quantum stuff or pure maths

My understanding is that there are things that need numerate graduates. Some will be physicists or engineers others will be maths graduates.

The money stuff is potentially quite complicated modelling. Lots of physical systems need modelling as well. Some of the higher levels of computing might need pure maths people

I have recruited teachers at big careers fayres. Lots of companies recruiting different kinds of people.  Well worth going along and chatting. What are they looking for?How do they recruit?

lots of people with that sort of brain end up in software engineering – I expect she did a module or 2 as part of her course?

grad schemes around london start circa £50k, so its not poorly paid either

Data scientist is the new term for analyst or stats minded/aware

Data analyst. Data scientist. We solve ‘problems’ / real world puzzles and get paid to do it.

All really helpful so far, keep it coming , she’s also keeping tabs on your replies.
A few potential areas already for her to explore, thanks. STW forum doing what it does well!

There’s no hurry to decide. She’ll figure it out when she looks for something that interests her. Mathematicians turn up in all sorts of unexpected places.

With a first class degree were folks encouraging her to consider a PhD?

She should just pick something that looks appealing. The worst that happens is she realises it’s no fun and then goes and does something else.

additional student debt

like real debt? She was in London after all. Or English student loans? These are not debts like bank loans. Though if she funds her own masters degree the support isn’t quite as nice as that of a first degree.

You can get into a lot of things with a maths degree, it’s one of those that’s a benchmark for a smart person that can pick up complex things and solve problems.

Small caution however, I think a fair few companies put smart young minds of this kind to waste.

My mate did a PhD then went off to write algorithms for de beers to find diamonds on the sea bed.

He was very enthusiastic about the job.

I assume he is now minted

Honestly, I doubt it.

What’s she want to do, because with a maths degree you can do most anything .   You don’t need to things that look obviously mathsy, aanything with data, or data modelling is open.

I have a maths degree ended up in software engineering. Chip design is another highly lucrative path worth looking at. You know of course that AI is all maths/matrices. Don’t write off engineering either as there are many big problems out there crying out for new ideas. The ongoing space race being one of them

I did a Maths degree at Exeter and most people I k ow went on to work as actuaries or in finance/accountancy.

Personally, I went on to work in IT as the logic and problem solving abilities that Maths gives you transfers quite well to data analysis and coding.

Quantum computing?  Nuclear fusion?  Physics based modelling? Cryptography?  All things that’re crying out for good mathematicians.  All things with substantial problems to solve.

Graduate natural catastrophe analyst at a large insurer or bank is a good place to start looking 

I went from Maths at uni to doing software with a bit of a specialism in fast time simulation, then ended up doing data analytics. Finance probably would’ve been more lucrative but I found it boring.

Actuaries and accountants is an obvious route for a maths grad, I’m sure a big chunk of my cohort went that way admittedly several decades back now. Pretty much any area of research if she’s considering heading down the PhD route, and perhaps even if she isn’t. As a mathematician I made a decent career for myself in (mostly) climate change research and a smattering of other sciences. Decent maths skills are always in demand and can be used in a wide range of areas beyond the basic “it’s a degree so I can do a graduate job” stuff.

I actually had a job offer from GCHQ before deciding to do the PhD. That would have been very maths-focussed research (cryptography etc). I think they liked to get their staff young and malleable rather than bitter and cynical like a new PhD tends to be.

(That last was a joke, possibly.)

Met Office definitely uses maths skills and is a good employer in a fantastic area (apart from the salary which is risible).

So many years ago I did a Maths ‘with’ course and then was very lucky to be of an era where some Masters courses were paid for, for about 10 students. Now that’s gone, the ability to try specialisms is harder. The key question is what type of maths did she enjoy and choose in her final years.

People I know went in to bank local manager (now senior risk manager at the same bank), banking / finance, from actuary or accountancy to modelling markets to insurance/reinsurance, lots of climate, weather, flood scientists and engineers as that’s what I went in to, statistical analysts for carbon/climate/energy start ups to big consultancy, software developers – particularly specialist programming equations – data scientists and consultants, including nuclear, and in Government / policy via data analysis jobs. And yes some teachers. And several PhDs working at Unis.

General high-level consultancy that will call themselves ‘analytics’ should give a range of fields, applications, and experience. Worth reviewing lots of grad programmes, including engineering firm, but understand the most ‘driven’ people she’ll be up against will be a year below and applying for next year’s intake. So she would need a plan of what to do with this year if she goes for a graduate scheme.

Scaffolder…that’s dead good at maths

Depends on her values and what she wants out of work.

If I was talented that way i’d be looking at joining a quant team in one of the big investment banks, do a couple of years there then QNT it up at a hedge fund for a bit and retire early

STFC graduate recruitment scheme takes a lot of Maths grads in software engineering, proper engineering, and physics type roles.

if she wants to avoid the corporate grind then it’s a great place to work, lots of holiday, excellent pension, salary is better than the Met Office and if she’s really lucky she might get to work with me!

she’s too late for the 2024 intake and the 2025 scheme will be advertised in the New Year.

GCHQ have some pretty cool jobs in this field and they have a Maths and Cryptography Internship if she wants to explore this a bit more

I work with a lot of Maths grads on medical robotics, not southwest London though.

Software, Data science, AI (although in my experience most of th AI people I worked with were post-doc).

London will have some options, she could trawl r/Henry on Reddit of she’s looking to get mega-rich 😉

MrsIHN is an actuary, marks the exam papers and gets involved with student recruitment,  so I’m sure would be more than happy to chat to your daughter about it if she’d be interested

I recon someone with a maths degree can play a key role in loads of fields. I guess it depends on what she’s interested in and is motivated by.  For example, if she’s interested in environment stuff, numerate people find jobs in meteorology, loads of environmental modeling disciplines, hydrology, etc.

My step sister has a maths degree and went straight to finance and has lived in Bermuda for that last 10(?) years.

Audio DSP

Masters or PhD in biomedical sciences and a career in Clinical Pharmacology. It a masters in medical statistics and also entry into the world of drug development.

You really don’t need much Maths to do Accountancy, Actuaries on the other hand do need to be good at Applied Maths and it is still used as a stepping stone into Investment Banking, where it is well regarded.  As far as Banking is concerned, quants do command high starting salaries but they often sit in Middle Office so their comp plateaus – as a general rule of thumb, the customer facing guys get the big bucks and often have the most varied and interesting jobs.

After 10 yrs degree/phd/research I landed in software, which then lead me into the telecoms industry. Recently of course have had a brush with maths again thanks to the ML boom.

More than ever it feels like the world’s your oyster with a maths degree – any of the above seem feasible to me.

All the money is in data now (ignoring traditional finance roles and the like). A rotational grad scheme at a consultancy that does a range of data analysis / data science / maybe some specific application e.g. pharma/robotics etc would get her well on the way to megabucks without becoming too pigeon holed. I’m 9ish years into engineering and often wish I’d chosen that route instead, it wasn’t as obvious at the time though. Engineering is hard work for a lot less (still good) money.

A lot of the big IT firms with graduate schemes should be pretty flexible on opportunities (e.g. we have data science, developer, security etc. type roles – you probably have to pick a preference to start with but I assume you can change your mind down the line).

If going into the IT world one tip I’d say is try to get security cleared asap (SC to start then DV if possible), it’s so much easier to find jobs and move around fields if you have clearance – another benefit of joining a big IT company is they’re often more willing to put people through the clearance process as they have a variety of roles requiring it (rather than a company wanting to take someone on for a specific role, most times they’d expect at least SC already).

Investment banking!

My daughter’s boyfriend has just started his career in investment banking having just graduated from Exeter Uni.

Don’t write off engineering either as there are many big problems out there crying out for new ideas. 

Got load of mathematicians working with me. Modelling batteries, traffic patterns, safety/crash modelling, people, manufacturing and supply, autonomous drive stuff.