As much as you love research, you may feel like academia is not necessarily your place after all, or maybe you want to mix it with some applied work – but what else is out there? As we’ve seen from the In The Wild interviews, there are plenty of exciting opportunities for PhDs in the ‘real world’.

But what does it really feel like to make the leap and go outside the parallel universe that is academia? What’s it like there? What skills does one need? And, most importantly, how does it compare to the academic world?

To answer some of those questions we’re speaking to people who changed gear after finishing their PhDs and moved into the commercial sector. We will be adding more perspectives in the coming months, but in the meanwhile get started with…

• Lizzy Leigh, behavioural research analyst at Swiss Re
• Paul Picciano, senior human-systems engineer at Aptima
• Dan Lockton, behavioural design expert
• Paul Litvak, data scientist at Google
• Jolie Martin, Quantitative UX Researcher, Google
• Kiki Koutmeridou, behavioural economics researcher, GfK NOP
• Florian Bauer, behavioural economist and pricing specialist, Vocatus AG