This page gives career information of relevance to Imperial Mathematics students.
You can find out how the Careers Service supports Imperial students on our services for students page, explore our career events, attend one to one appointments and sign up for our weekly newsletter, sent every Thursday (sign up by checking the relevant box on your personal profile on JobsLive). Whatever stage you are at with your studies, we’re here to help from first year undergraduates right through to PhD studies – you don’t even have to know what you want to do to make use of our services!
What can you do with Mathematics?
Mathematics graduates have a wide range of career options. Some choose to continue using their maths knowledge in their career, and others choose to change direction after graduation. Around 45% of Imperial maths graduates choose to do further study and around 45% go into employment at the end of their first degree. We have a webpage What do Imperial Graduates Do? where you can see examples of the employers and further study options chosen by previous graduates of your course. Do not feel limited to what you see there as there are many other options open to you.
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Typically maths students learn excellent skills from their course. Here are some of the skills that maths alumni from Imperial felt were most valuable:
Logical thinking, puzzle solving, working under high pressure, being able to structure a problem, ability to learn really fast, being able to think ahead and seek knowledge without being told to, independence
These are highly valued by employers. However maths students may need to also work on other valued skills to increase their attractiveness to employers, particularly around team work and working with other people. Here is some careers advice from maths graduates from Imperial on what you can do:
- Get some work experience, such as work shadowing or internships
- Proactively do some extracurricular activities or engage with student societies
- Build teamwork, communication and social skills
- Learning to code is useful for lots of jobs
- Get experience of writing because all jobs need writing skills, even if it’s just emails
- Learn about the area of work you are interested in by reading news about it, listening to podcasts or attending events
It’s good to reflect on your abilities and consider what skills you can evidence and which skills you may need to enhance. Use our self reflection webpages to help you understand and document your abilities.
During your degree you will have many opportunities to develop and learn new skills. Employers will want to see what you have been doing to develop your skills and knowledge outside your course while you have been a student. Experiences such as student societies, part-time work, volunteering and sports can develop your skills and will be valuable additions to your CV. Work experience can also help develop skills and help you decide what career direction you want to go in and become more competitive in future job or further study applications.
As an Imperial student you can participate, or take a leadership role, in a wide variety of Students’ Union activities where you’ll develop many skills. You also have free access to LinkedIn Learning and can use this to develop or improve your knowledge and abilities with software tools and skills through instructional videos taught by industry experts skills.
You can learn and develop the skills required to be successful in the job or internship market. For example, you will need to know how to create a strong CV, write a good cover letter and perform well in interviews. We can help you to learn these skills. Start with the applications and interviews section of our website, and by attending our skills training and workshops.