OK you came to Scotland, you will/have achieve(d) a degree (Bachelors, Masters, PhD) in Scotland but do you know where to go next? Check the following facts>

 Scotland in figures

 Population                    5,062,011 (2001)

Area                             78,132 sq. km

GDP                            £72,989 million (2002)

GDP per head             £14,440 (2002)

Labour force                2,573,000

Apr – Jun 04 Employment                 2,413,000

Apr – Jun 04 Ave weekly wage             £436.80 (Apr 03)  

Scotland gave the world…

Logarithms – capitalism - street lighting – steam engine – the telegraph – television - the photocopier – theory of combustion – helium – radar – dolly ( the cloned sheep ) - the hypodermic syringe – anaesthesia – Penicillin – insulin – golf - the bowling green – fountain pens - finger-printing – the traffic cone.

Scotland’s Industries

Aerospace

Scotland already boasts four major airports, among them the UK’s largest freight airport and world’s busiest heliport. The country is also home to over 140 aerospace-related companies, employing some 15,000 staff, increasing to 30,000 including supply base. World famous manufacturers such as BAE SYSTEMS, Rolls-Royce, Honeywell, Teledyne, GE and DARA sit side by side with avionics specialists like Thales and Raytheon, as well as some of the biggest names in MRO (manufacture, repair and overhaul), including British Airways, Polar Air Cargo and two companies which between them have recently committed over £19m to Scotland’s ‘aerospace corridor’, Ryanair and US aerospace giant, The Goodrich Corporation.

Chemicals

The Chemicals manufacturing sector in Scotland has an annual output in excess of £2.2b (Euro 3.3b; $3.3b); There are over 7000 employed directly in the chemicals industry in Scotland and over 60% of products manufactured in Scotland are exported from the UK. World scale companies such as Akzo Nobel, Avecia, BP, Ciba Specialty Chemicals, Exxon, GlaxoSmithKline, Rhodia, Chirex and Syngenta have Scottish operations. The newest facility is a major pharmaceutical research laboratory some six years old.  Scotland’s 13 universities, 6 high education institutions and 46 further education colleges provide a steady flow of potential scientific and technical employees.

Construction

The Construction Industry accounts for around 10 percent of Scotland's GDP (when measured using the 'cluster' methodology).  In 2001 the industry in Scotland had a turnover of £9.7 billion and provisional DTI figures for 2003 show Scottish construction output was £7,619 million - of this total, £2,871m (38 percent) was repair and maintenance work and £4747 (62 percent) new work. In winter 2003, the industry employed 197,000 people in Scotland (ONS Labour Force Survey), over 8 percent of Scottish total and the built environment in Scotland, the product of the construction industry, is estimated to have a replacement value well in excess of £200 billion.

Contact Centres

Scotland has around 290 contact centres, employing about 56,000 people, of which 30 per cent are in the finance sector. These include companies such as NTL and Thomson Travel Group.

Digital Media and Creative Industries

Digital Media and Creative Industries in Scotland are estimated to be worth annual sales of £5 billion, providing more than 100,000 jobs and accounting for four per cent of Scottish GDP. Scotland has particular strengths in Content Origination, for example multimedia and games producers, Film/ TV/ Radio Producers, Musicians and so on. Scotland’s other strengths lie in the “Upgrading & Innovative Bodies”, including support agencies, universities and colleges and any area where creativity and research & development are to the fore.

The Scottish games sector is led by a small group of successful studios – such as VIS entertainment plc (State Of Emergency for PlayStation 2) and Rockstar North (Grand Theft Auto).

Electronics

The microelectronics and optoelectronics industry in Scotland employs over 25,000, retaining some of our most talented people and contributing over £1.1 billion to Scotland’s GVA.

Both remain key sectors for Scotland, home to both a number of the world’s leading companies and most innovative and dynamic Scottish start-ups. These include Freescale Semiconductor, JVC, Polaroid, National Semiconductor, Intense, MED, Xilinx, ST Microelectronics, Nallatec and Wolfson Microelectronics.  2300 are employed in semiconductor fabrication with 1800 in supply & around 1000 in design. In Optoelectronics, Scottish researchers are the 7th most quoted in the world and the growing industrial sector is currently valued at around £800 million, employing over 4,200 people.  With only 10% of the UK's population, 34% of UK Government optoelectronics research funding goes directly into 20 Scottish University departments.

Energy

Over 100,000 jobs in Scotland (6 percent of workforce) are dependent on the oil and gas industry. In Scotland, over 2,000 companies are involved in the oil and gas industry. Many of the world's unexplored oil fields lie under very deep water. Scotland’s expertise in sub-sea technology and recovering oil and gas from deep-water wells will continue to grow in importance and make the country’s technology an increasingly valuable export.

For two decades - beginning in the 1940s - Scotland pioneered the exploitation of large-scale renewable energy in the UK with the construction of over 50 hydroelectric power stations.

Scotland’s major power generation companies have a combined turnover of £1.3bn and employ over 7,000 people. During the 20th century, Scotland generated most of its electricity from coal and nuclear power.

Financial Services

Scotland is the sixth largest equity management centre in Europe. Eight of Scotland’s top 20 companies are in the financial services sector. Two of Europe’s top seven banks by market value are Scottish (RBS third; HBOS seventh). Funds under management in Scotland currently total £327 billion (Scottish Financial Enterprise at Dec 03).

Food and Drink

Scotland's food and drink industry is hugely important to the economy, with the food and drink processing industry experiencing annual sales of £7.3 billion (including whisky and other alcoholic drinks), and employing 17% of Scotland's manufacturing employees - over 48,000 people – in more than 1,500 businesses. The industry is closely linked to Scotland's growing tourism sector

Life Sciences

Scotland is home to one of the most sizeable life science clusters in Europe and hosts a significant multinational presence in research and development and in manufacturing.  Scotland's life sciences community has had an average growth rate per annum of more than 20% during the period 1999-2003.  As of Oct 2004, there were over 570 organisations employing more than 28,000 people.  Scotland’s primary focus is on human healthcare as 71% of the core life science organisations are involved in this aspect.  Investment in Scotland – there is a significant presence or organisations, many with EU Headquarters located in Scotland including Invitrogen, Viragen and Upstate Discovery. ITI Life Sciences is a new Scottish venture aimed at emerging global markets through technology development (located in Scotland).

Textiles

Scotland's textiles industry employs approximately 22,000 people. The industry is the 7th largest manufacturer in Scotland - it accounts for 6.3 per cent of Scottish manufacturing jobs. Its main sectors - apparel, weaving, technical textiles and knitwear - account for 80 per cent of Scotland's textiles jobs. Some 3 per cent of all Scottish manufactured exports are textiles. The industry is Scottish manufacturing's 7th largest exporter. Leading companies in this market include Orkney Angora, Ballantyne Cashmere and Clan Douglas.

Tourism

Tourism is one of Scotland’s most promising growth industries. In 2002 the sector generated almost £4.5bn supporting around 9% of all employment. An estimated 200,000 people work in tourism-related industries in Scotland. The UK accounts for 91 percent of tourism trips to Scotland and overseas tourism accounts for 9 percent. Of these, 72 percent of overseas trips are taken in April- September.

The USA is our biggest overseas market, accounting for 26 percent of the overseas trips. Overseas tourists stay an average of 9.3 nights, Scottish tourists, an average of 3 nights and English tourists, an average of 4.2 nights.

The most popular destinations, for both overseas and UK tourists, are the Highlands, Edinburgh and Glasgow. A total of 37.9m visits were made to Scottish visitor attractions in 2003. The Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh was the most visited free attraction with over 700,000 visitors, and Edinburgh Zoo the most visited paid attraction, with 1,172,000 visitors in 2003.

Key employers include: CISCO systems, British Airways, Royal Bank of Scotland, BAA, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Epson, Hilton Reservations Worldwide, IBM, J P Morgan, Lux Biotechnology, NCR, Pilkington Electronics, Roslin Institute, Standard Life and Sun Microsystems.