Leaving academia for the commercial sector

Imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon this quote from Jennie Flint, a fellow female scientist: ‘When I followed the well-worn path (from academia) into industry…I wasn’t sure what to expect. What I had never imagined was a job in biotech surrounded by intelligent, talented women with STEM degrees’. If you replace ‘biotech’ with ‘data science’, this statement could apply precisely to my situation and experiences!

Photo by Amy Hirschi on Unsplash

There remains an urgent need to increase women’s representation in the area of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). This is especially true of data science. The current under-representation of women in this rapidly growing field increases the risk that data-driven policies will be biased and could harm women’s interests. However, just 3% of female university students in the UK say that a career in technology would be their first choice.

Sadly, the ‘leaky pipeline’ that leads to the loss of more women than men from STEM fields at all stages of an academic career was identified decades ago and has yet to be effectively addressed. Indeed, a study by Spoon and colleagues published in 2023, in which they analysed the employment records of more than 245,000 academics (from both STEM and non-STEM fields) in the USA, found that women continue to leave academia at a higher rate than men at every career stage. This is especially prevalent after women receive full professorship, with older female academics more likely to report feeling they were 'pushed' out of academia compared with their younger counterparts.

As other authors have noted, in addition to being an equity and ethical issue, the high rate of attrition of women from academia is an economic problem. Considerable amounts of money are invested in women as they progress through their education and subsequent training, in addition to any funding they may later receive. This represents an enormous waste of money if these women feel they have no option but to leave academia.

Spoon and colleagues noted that the main reasons women reported leaving academia were related to the workplace climate, including dysfunctional leadership, feelings of not belonging to the department or university, harassment and discrimination. They also found that gender was the strongest predictor of individuals feeling that they were pushed out of academia.

Shockingly, another US study found that rates of sexual harassment in academia were second only to those in the military. Findings such as this have led some authors to refer to this issue as academia’s ‘harassment epidemic’.

A greater proportion of women than men in both STEM and non-STEM domains report feeling they were pushed out of academia, while a lower proportion of women than men feel ‘pulled’ towards better opportunities. For me, leaving academia was due to both push and pull factors.

Push factors included many of those reported by Spoon and colleagues, such as a poor workplace climate, the stress associated with the need to continually seek funding, institutional sexism and limited support from my former department. In addition, there was the extremely high workload due to an excessive quantity of administrative tasks, the ‘mountain of small things’ as so eloquently outlined by Masud Husain.

Pull factors were the high demand in the commercial sector for someone with my data science skill set, a more diverse group of colleagues, the fostering of a collaborative over a competitive environment, a better salary and the opportunity to work from home full-time.

For the time being, I am essentially in a hybrid commercial and academic role. I spend 80% of my time doing my commercial work and the remaining 20% of my time as an academic in my new department.

I know of several other female colleagues who are in similar hybrid roles, with different configurations and balances between commercial and academic work. Some have 100% academic positions but they also have companies or other means of fundraising for their research groups.

Conversely, other colleagues have a 100% commercial role but also hold an academic position. Still others work for consultancies but they have additional, commercially oriented roles. These roles include being an advisor to a university on issues around entrepreneurship and being a mentor to other individuals with similar hybrid roles.

For me, my experiences having (mostly) left academia for a career in the commercial sector have been overwhelmingly positive. My experience also mirrors Jennie’s observation, and I am now in a work situation where I am working closely with intelligent, talented women with STEM degrees.

I had hoped I would be able to achieve this within academia, but sadly such relationships were the exception rather than the rule and now fit into the remaining 20% of my time in the sector. However, I am happy to have now found a much more stimulating, supportive, positive and diverse working environment.