Female students in a labThis page gives career information of relevance to Imperial Medical Bioscience students.

You can find out how the Careers Service supports Imperial students on our Services for students webpage, 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 Medical Biosciences?

Medical Bioscience graduates have a wide range of career options. Some choose to continue using their degree knowledge in their career, and others choose to change direction after graduation. Around 47% of Imperial medical bioscience graduates choose to do further study and 35% go into employment at the end of their first degree. Use the resources below to help you start to explore and understand your options and to begin to develop your career plans.

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Develop your skills

Wherever your career leads you employers will want to see evidence of the skills you have developed in your studies. These may include technical skills and academic knowledge if you’re seeking a job related to medical bioscience and ‘transferable skills’ like problem solving, resilience and intellectual curiosity that fit a broad range of roles within and outside of medical bioscience related roles.

Gaining a role in a lab after your studies is possible despite the degree not being accredited. Check out Prospects' Biomedical scientist job profile to read about the various routes into this role.

The typical skills developed by Imperial medical bioscience students during their degree are highly valued by employers and include:

  • Problem-solving
  • Analysis
  • Time management & independence (flipped teaching model)
  • Teamwork (labpods)
  • Communication skills
  • Ability to learn fast
  • Working under pressure

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.

Explore career areas

When you understand your skills through self reflection it’s a good idea to then learn about the range of career areas that might be of interest. Our What do Imperial graduates do? webpage contains our Graduate Outcomes data which gives examples of employers and further study options of previous graduates. You can search the data to find what Medical Bioscience graduates went on to do immediately after graduation and you may also find it useful to explore Imperial College LinkedIn Alumni Tool where you can explore the career paths of our alumni as their careers develop over time. However, don't feel limited by what others have done, but instead, follow your own interests.

For medical bioscience students, it is helpful to consider whether you want to use your degree knowledge in a job. If so, would you like to be in the lab or working outside the lab? To help you begin we have listed some of the career areas that Imperial medical bioscience students often go into which is taken from our What do Imperial graduates do? webpage Graduate Outcomes data. Our Exploring options resources can help you to learn more about these sectors including desirable skills, responsibilities, professional development and salary expectations across different roles and industries. You can also meet employers from many of these areas through Careers Service events and fairs which are advertised on JobsLive and in our weekly newsletter. 

Many Medical Bioscience students go on to pursue further study at MSc or PhD level.

If you are interested in continuing to use your medical bioscience knowledge you could consider some of these industries, all of which employ medical bioscientists:   

  • Pharmaceutical and biotechnology
  • Manufacturing
  • Technical consultancy
  • Health and Social Work
  • R&D
  • Education

Here are some of the typical careers outside science that medical bioscientists often go into:

  • Banking / finance
  • Accountancy
  • Business
  • Management consulting
  • Graduate management roles
  • Sales

Through your research you’ll see that there’s a very wide range of options open to Medical Bioscience graduates. Some of these are directly accessible from a first degree while others may require additional further study. This can create many questions that you’ll want to answer and speaking to a Careers Consultant through one of our one-to-one appointments may help after your initial research.

Professional bodies

A professional body, association or society seeks to further a particular profession and the interests of individuals engaged in that profession. The body maintains an oversight of the knowledge, skills, conduct and practice of that profession and can offer accreditation or chartership. You can often use professional bodies to access training or networking events and explore related career options.

Below are some links to professional bodies that deal with various areas related to Medical Biosciences. Many offer student membership which can give you access to job listings and careers information while offering great networking opportunities. Some memberships may even allow you to register your CV to vacancy matching services or to be viewed by other members of the community.

Industry links

There are many well-known Multinational Companies (MNCs) offering graduate level jobs but Small or Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs), defined as organisations with fewer than 250 employees, also offer a wide range of interesting and unique graduate level roles. Due to a smaller marketing budget SMEs can be harder to find and they often rely on you approaching them speculatively to show motivation and interest. They will sometimes engage with universities through incubation hubs to help them grow skills and expertise. The Imperial Enterprise Lab often run events to help students understand and network with SME and start-up communities.

Below are some websites to help with finding SMEs:

Sector specific job sites:

  • Gradcracker – website focused on STEM jobs
  • ABPI Jobfinder – The Association of British Pharmaceutical Industries own job-hunting tool
  • Hyper Recruitment Solutions – providing recruitment solutions for specialist sectors including BioTech and Pharma 
  • Jobs.ac.uk – Research, Science, Academic, Teaching and Management jobs and studentships in the public and private sector 
  • Jobs in Science – Recruitment agency specifically for lab and science related roles
  • NatureJobs.com – packed with the latest career articles, science jobs and employment news 
  • To find further agencies operating in the area you may want to explore The Recruitment & Employment Confederation (UK) Membership Directory or speak to people within the industry to see where jobs adverts are placed
  • Proclinical Life Sciences – a global life science recruitment agency with a variety of roles available across different countries
  • Hobson Prior – prides itself on global collaboration, resulting in them operating in over 28 countries and becoming leading life science recruitment experts across Europe and the Asia Pacific

Other links of potential interest:

Next steps

Career planning often takes time and can sometimes feel overwhelming. It’s a good idea to set aside a small amount of time on a regular basis to maintain momentum. Below are some things to get you started:

  • Sign up to the Imperial Careers Newsletter by checking the relevant box on your personal profile on JobsLive
  • Learn about the timescales for applying for further study, work experience and graduate employment
  • See our What's on webpages to find out about the different types of events that we run, including: workshops, careers fairs, career talks  - and hear from alumni and employers about different types of work.
  • Learn the skills that will help you succeed on the job market in the Applications and interviews section of our website, and by attending our skills training and workshops.

If you feel stuck with your career planning, you could book a one-to-one appointment to talk it through with a careers consultant. Rebecca Guppy is the careers consultant for Medical Biosciences but you can see any of our consultants for your first appointment.