Investigative
The thinkers: research, analysis and working out how things work
Investigative interests are for work that involves observing, measuring, analysing and solving problems: science, medicine, data and software. People high on this type like understanding why, prefer ideas and evidence to persuasion, and are careful with detail when it leads somewhere. Most routes in run through further study, though not all.
The activities it describes
- Running experiments and tests
- Analysing data and finding patterns
- Working out what is wrong and why
- Studying the natural world
- Writing software and modelling
- Reading and keeping up with research
Twenty UK jobs
Each links to its National Careers Service profile, with pay, hours and routes in.
| UK job title | Mapped from the O*NET occupation |
|---|---|
| GP | Family Medicine Physicians |
| Hospital doctor | Physicians, All Other |
| Pharmacist | Pharmacists |
| Biomedical scientist | Medical Scientists, Except Epidemiologists |
| Chemist | Chemists |
| Data scientist | Data Scientists |
| Software developer | Software Developers |
| Laboratory technician | Chemical Technicians |
| Meteorologist | Atmospheric and Space Scientists |
| Forensic scientist | Forensic Science Technicians |
| Environmental consultant | Environmental Scientists and Specialists, Including Health |
| Research scientist | Biochemists and Biophysicists |
| Economist | Economists |
| Dentist | Dentists, General |
| Vet | Veterinarians |
| Microbiologist | Microbiologists |
| Physicist | Physicists |
| Geoscientist | Geoscientists, Except Hydrologists and Geographers |
| Clinical scientist | Medical Scientists, Except Epidemiologists |
| Food scientist | Food Scientists and Technologists |
Types that combine with it
- Realistic (IR): finding out by doing, such as engineering and field science.
- Artistic (IA): finding out and making, such as architecture and games programming.
- Social (IS): finding out for people, such as medicine and the health professions.
Your three highest areas make your code; twenty Holland codes and UK jobs lists the commonest codes with jobs for each.
Guides that cover this
Sources and licence
Interest types from Holland's RIASEC model as used by the O*NET Interest Profiler; UK job titles mapped by hand from O*NET occupations with this type as the first letter of their interest code, and linked to the National Careers Service (Department for Education) job profiles.
This page includes information from the O*NET Career Exploration Tools by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY-ND 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. O*NET Career Exploration Tools licence.