For the greatest career opportunities you will require a postgraduate degree (MSc or PhD). This reflects the fact that most demand is for statisticians who will work with scientists from other disciplines, have a wide knowledge of available statistical methods and have the confidence to provide the necessary statistical quality control on their work without day-to-day supervision. Some employers may recruit from a first degree and then sponsor their staff to undertake higher degrees.
For information about postgraduate degrees throughout the general area of statistics, please see our prospective postgraduates section.
Continuing professional development
Continuing professional development (CPD) is essential for environmental statisticians as new statistical techniques are always evolving, often driven by advances in computing. It is also important to keep up to date with the rapid advances in environmental science, which often require new statistical approaches. Usually CPD is carried out through activities such as attending and presenting work at conferences and studying and contributing to research journals.
The Environmental Statistics Section of the Royal Statistical Society website provides a forum for seminars of interest to environmental statisticians and has also run tutorial meetings and workshops of relevance to the discipline.
Your professional work as a statistician might well benefit from the professional qualification of Chartered Statistician (CStat), which would give you a professional affiliation with the Royal Statistical Society.
At the international level, membership of The International Environmetrics Society (TIES) will connect you to a worldwide network of statisticians working in the environment. TIES runs a series of conferences around the world. The group Statistics in Public Resources and Utilities, and Care of the Environment (SPRUCE) also runs international conferences and advanced workshops in environmental statistics.