Career Options and Opportunities

Entering Direct Employment with a BSc in Physiology

A good grounding in Physiology opens the way to a wide range of careers and postgraduate study. Many Physiology graduates find direct employment in either pharmaceutical or medical-related professions and utilise the scientific knowledge/skills that they learned during the degree programme. Nine of the top 10 Pharmaceutical and 15 of the top 25 Medical Technology companies have significant operations in Ireland. The pharmaceutical industry directly employs over 24,500 people, over half of which are third level graduates. A number of our graduates are working for Irish-based biotechnological/pharmaceutical companies such as MSD, Wyeth and Pfizer. Others have gained employment as sales representatives for companies that supply pharmaceuticals to the medical profession and life sciences reagents/equipment to research and teaching laboratories. 

Specialist roles exist within the health services that are of particular relevance to physiology such as a gastrointestinal physiologist, cardiac physiologist and sports physiologist.

Graduates who opt to pursue postgraduate research qualifications may find work as scientific researchers in health research centres and academic institutions. Some chose graduate-entry “accelerated” routes to qualifying in medicine, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, dentistry and nursing.

Others choose to “convert” their degree to an area in which scientific knowledge and specific skills, such as numeracy or data interpretation, organisational abilities and critical thinking are useful and go on to find employment in management consultancy, the financial sector, marketing or publishing.

Jobs for which Physiology is advantageous:

• Exercise Physiologist
• Scientific Researcher
• Aerospace Physiology Instructor
• Cardiac Physiologist
• Lecturer
• Science Teacher
• Medical Sales Representative
• Quality assurance
• Pharmaceutical  Lab Analyst.
• Validation Engineer
• Dietician

For further careers ideas and job information, click on these links to the careers pages of the following organisations:

• Nature Careers Magazine

• Biosciences Federation     

• The Physiological Society          

• UCC Careers Service           

Current Job Opportunities

For current job opportunities for those with either a B.Sc. or Ph.D. in Physiology see

• NatureJobs

• NewScientist Jobs

• The Physiological Society

• jobs.ac.uk

Click here for UCC careers office list of recent Physiology graduates