Nursing

It's easy to assume that nurses work in hospital environments, but throughout your course you’ll have seen that nursing extends far beyond the acute environment. As the profession offers a range of roles across multiple settings, it can be difficult to define a 'standard career pathway'.

The examples below provide a broad overview rather than an exhaustive list of every career route within nursing. There may be some overlap between roles depending on the employing organisation, and opportunities may be found locally, regionally, nationally and globally depending on skills and interests.

• Hospital settings – Just about every department within a hospital is likely to have nurses working within it in some capacity, whether this be within admissions and emergency care, preventative medicine, rehabilitative services, working with long-term conditions, diagnostic services or palliative care. The possibilities are therefore endless. 
• Community settings – Community settings mean more than working in as a nurse in a GP practice, for example opportunities may exist in:
  • • multi-disciplinary teams working as a district nurse visiting and monitoring patients in their homes in urban or rural settings
    • assessment centres, screening, immunisation or outreach services
    • children’s centres or education establishments such as schools, colleges, further and higher education
    • local authority settings (for example, social services, local authority providers of community drop-in services, health visitor services, or public health programmes),
    • social care, residential, nursing and care homes
    • prison, police, fire and ambulance services
• Private sector and/or charities, community interest companies and social enterprise organisations. Some nurses may also work on cruise ships, oil rigs, in aesthetics and cosmetic clinics to name but a few examples. In addition, nurses are highly sought after across the globe and may work for humanitarian, and disaster support organisations such as the Disaster Emergency Committee, International Red Cross, Medecins San Frontiers. Find out more about working in different countries on our How do I find work abroad? pages
• Armed Forces careers – As a qualified nurse, many roles are available within the military and include all areas of Nursing practice. Army Nurse, Royal Navy Healthcare and Medical and RAF nursing

Graduate destinations from the Graduate Outcomes survey

Newly qualified nurses tend to start their career in a band 5 position alongside side a preceptorship that will support their transition from student to registered nurse. These newly qualified nurse opportunities exist in both the hospital and community-based environment.

After that, many different pathways will be open to you within the “four pillars of practice” - clinical practice, leadership positions, education and research.

While the following list has much cross over, we have grouped the following to give you a feel for the kinds of roles using the four pillars of practice.

Example roles within clinical practice

Working with certain client groups such as the homeless, refugees, victims of sexual violence, teenage pregnancy, the elderly or with particular issues such as substance misuse, sexual health, stop smoking initiatives, diabetes, obesity, mental health and more. An example progression pathway might be:

1. Staff nurse (Band 5)
2. Clinical nurse specialist
3. Advanced nurse practitioner
4. Consultant nurse
5. Executive director of nursing (Band 8)

Example leadership roles

Labour ward coordinator or manager, matron, consultant nurse, clinical governance, policy, commissioning, advisory roles (to Health Education England or Department of Health and Social Care, for example). An example progression pathway might be:

1. Staff nurse (Band 5)
2. Senior staff nurse
3. Ward manager
4. Associate director of nursing
5. Chief executive (Band 8)

Example roles within education

Practice education, lecturing and teaching positions, nurse educator, clinical and educational mentor. An example progression pathway might be:

1. Staff nurse (Band 5)
2. Senior nurse
3. Practice development nurse
4. Head of faculty
5. Executive director of operations (Band 8)

Example roles within research

Clinical academic careers via opportunities such as lectureships and fellowships. There may also be clinical research opportunities within clinical trials and clinical research organisations (commercial, charitable or research council funded) as a research nurse. An example progression pathway might be:

1. Staff nurse (Band 5)
2. Research nurse
3. Senior research nurse
4. Research leader
5. Chief research nurse 

Registered nurses (and midwives) working in a public health role can apply to undertake an approved training programme in specialist community public health nursing (known as ‘SCPHN’). This can open up a range of further opportunities in areas such as health visiting, occupational health, school nursing and public health nursing as part of career progression. Most SCPHN courses are offered at degree or master’s level.

Find out more about entry requirements and further training using the following links. Some useful case studies and videos accompany the information available via these links.

• Health visitor
• Occupational health nurse
• School nurse
• Public health nurse (examples roles may include working as in health promotion, health protection, in infection control or as a TB nurse)

Case study – from child health nurse to school nurse and nurse to public health nurse 

Standards of Proficiency for Specialist Community Public Health Nursing

Maximise opportunities to gain and develop your experience to provide a great addition to your CV and unique opportunities to sell yourself at interview. Find out more about gaining additional experience on our work experience pages.

Make the most of your placement opportunities

Ensure you maximise all the support and help available to get the most out of your placements. Many student nurses reflect that their practice placements informed some of their most important future career decisions.

Reflect on your experiences to identify your strengths, clinical areas of interest and understand the working environment in which you thrive.  Take time to develop relationships and contacts with nursing staff during placement to understand different career journeys and develop professional networks.

Consider applying for University of Nottingham Dean’s Academic Health Sciences Internship

This is a paid ‘sandwich year’ that takes place usually between the second and third year of the undergraduate course with applications opening around April to May.

Nurses, physiotherapists, midwives and sports rehabilitation students are invited to step off the course to spend 12 months as a paid university staff member to work on all sorts of exciting opportunities to develop their experience, employability and future career ideas.

Military careers

As a student, the armed forces offer sponsorships and bursaries for university students. You can apply for subjects like science, technology, engineering, maths and healthcare. There are exciting ways to get experience of military life during your degree. While you're at university, you might also consider joining a relevant group or society to further your interests in military careers. Find out more about the armed services.

Join learning networks, forums and committees, communities of interest and societies

There are many opportunities both within university and within nursing organisations that will help you to expand your professional networks, gain mentorship and develop skills while at the University of Nottingham.  In addition, NHS trusts and professional bodies/associations have staff/member networks (many open to placement students) to support wellbeing, belonging in the workplace and professional development. Below are some examples:

• Nursing and Midwifery Association
• The Black Industry Connections and Empowerment Programme (BICEP)
• The African Caribbean Medical Network 
• LGBTQ+ Healthcare Society
• Nottingham Consultancy Challenge
• UoN Student's Union
• Royal College of Nursing - forums and networks list
• The Queen's Institute of Community Nursing - Resources for Students and Newly Qualified nurses

While most students who study nursing progress into clinical practice, you may decide that becoming a nurse isn’t for you. If you have aspired to be a nurse for many years, choosing not to pursue a career in the profession can be a difficult decision to make. 

Fortunately, your nursing degree has equipped you with many transferrable skills that are highly sought after by graduate employers.  These skills combined with a positive attitude, can open doors to a great number of career opportunities within healthcare and beyond the health sector. 

When exploring alternative careers options, it is important to reflect on your strengths, your values, motivators and interests. Our Choosing your career webpages are a good place to start. Whether you have some ideas or are unsure about your next steps, booking a careers appointment can help you gain clarity and explore the possibilities available to you.

Read Yca Tan's story about deciding a career in nursing wasn't right for her

Book an appointment with an adviser if you want to talk about your options

Make the most of any preceptorship year offered

If your role as a newly qualified nurse offers a preceptorship period, use the protected learning time and available support to help you develop the confidence, knowledge, skills attitudes and behaviours to practice as an accountable healthcare professional so that you are able to work effectively.

Find out more about preceptorships:

• NMC Preceptorship
• Read Chloe’s blog from nurses.co.uk about what is preceptorship and how it helps newly qualified nurses
• Use NHS England’s national preceptorship framework for nursing to help you craft questions you may have for a prospective employer about their preceptorship programme

Engage in regular CPD activity

From tapping into a short online course to developing advanced clinical skills, engaging in regular CPD can offer valuable opportunities for development and can also help you to refine your career aspirations and direction. Regularly discuss opportunities with your employer as part of appraisal and development conversations and review what your professional body offers to source suitable opportunities.

Prepare for revalidation

Revalidation is the method by which you will continue to renew your registration and remain fit to practice. There is a wealth of information about revalidation on the RCN website

Royal College of Nursing

Developed jointly between the RCN and Health Education England, this excellent online resource is designed to provide you with a range of ideas about the varying roles that you can enjoy throughout your health and social care career. You can browse the different roles within clinical practice, leadership, education and research in order to gain a greater understanding of the skills and knowledge required as well as possible routes into these kinds of roles.

In addition, there are sections on:

• moving on in a clinical role
• changing clinical setting
• changing nursing fields
• education, research and leadership
• Skills and professional development
• Some excellent ‘career progression tips’

RCN careers resources

Health Careers – nursing section

The Health Careers website hosts a comprehensive careers information section on nursing with many written and video case studies, and additional links and resources. It’s worth spending half an hour or so browsing through the information available, which may also help you to generate future career ideas to explore further.

Simply visit the ‘explore roles’ section of the website and navigate to ‘nursing careers’ to view further information about different specialisms and just some of the roles you might consider as part of your future nursing career.

The National Learning Disability Nursing Forum

The National Learning Disability Nursing Forum aims to recognise, promote and celebrate learning disability nursing and provides blogs, case studies and information about different areas of practice.

Additional resources 

Our website offers you some important and practical information to assist you in making career decisions and applying for jobs:

Explore our choosing your career pages

Find support for making applications

Find out more about specific nursing (and midwifery) applications