The Geological Society of London (GSL) is a professional membership body and learned society for geoscience, the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe, with more than 12,000 Fellows, over 2,800 of whom are Chartered Geologists.
Recognising that a sustainable future relies on geological scientists, the Geological Society is concerned that there are too few geoscientists today trained to tackle the associated challenges. UK universities have seen a decrease in admissions onto geoscience-related programmes since 2015, at the same time as competition to attract students grows. GSL’s This is Geoscience project aims to help tackle this recruitment gap and attract the next generation of geoscientists. The project aims to collate data from the UK and internationally to map the current situation and provide practical actions to help geosciences continue to thrive as a profession, so that humankind is ready to continue tackling the global challenges we face alongside the ongoing sustainable development that we strive for.
GSL asked Ortus Economic Research to contribute to the This is Geoscience project by undertaking research to explore remuneration, skills demand, and job availability in the geological sciences. The research used the Lightcast Analyst platform to develop a detailed picture of employer demand for geoscientists. Lightcast is designed to provide labour market intelligence by scraping online job advertisements from various sources and using machine learning to identify unique job postings which are then classified by occupation, location, skills, qualifications, and experience required. Lightcast’s granularity is particularly helpful for understanding jobs in the geological sciences, as official statistics do not represent them well.
The research identified 5,367 unique job postings relating to the geological sciences between March 2024 and February 2025, with 742 employers competing. A variety of job titles are used, with most jobs being in resources, energy, construction, infrastructure, engineering, education, research, and technical sectors. Advertised salaries for full-time roles ranged from £24,000 to £159,000 per year, with a median annual salary for all vacancies in the geological sciences of £37,331. This is close to the median full-time salary for all workers in the UK, which was £37,430 in 2024. A wide range of job-specific technical skills are required by employers, with considerable overlap between career paths. Generic skills requirements include investigation, communication, management, report writing, mentorship, planning, innovation, leadership, quality assurance and research, while digital skills requirements often include geographical information systems, computer aided design and statistical analysis software.