Science communication career:
navigating the job market

Text by Shreya Kouda

Editing by Olya Vvedenskaya and Diana Mitrea

• What does the science communication job market actually look like?

• What are the different science communication career pathways and who is hiring?

• How do you find science communication jobs when "science communicator" is rarely an official job title?

You have decided to explore science communication as a career. Full of motivation, you open a job board, type "science communicator," and get nothing useful back. You close the tab and assume the field is smaller than you thought, or that you are somehow looking in the wrong place. You are not. The science communication job market is real and growing, but it is scattered across industries, inconsistently labelled, and rarely explained in one place. There is no single well-signposted path in, but there is a logic to how it works, and once you understand who hires, what they call the roles, and where people tend to start, the whole landscape becomes a lot less intimidating. That is what this article is for.

Pathways into a science communication career

Science communication is a remarkably diverse field, spanning everything from medical writing and science policy to museum education and multimedia production. If you read our introduction to science communication (definition and meaning), you will already have a sense of that range. There is no single path into a science communication career, and understanding that upfront saves a lot of unnecessary anxiety. In practice, most people enter through one of three modes: volunteering, freelancing, or stepping directly into a staff role. Not everyone goes through all three, and there is no required sequence. 

Volunteering is the lowest-barrier entry point into a science communication career. Science outreach programs, university public engagement events, science festivals, and patient advocacy groups regularly rely on volunteers for science communication, and this is where a large number of working science communicators first built their experience. This entry point usually requires no formal credentials, except for a science degree, and no existing portfolio, which makes it genuinely accessible to researchers at any career stage.

Freelancing tends to suit people who want to explore science communication and test whether it is the right direction for them, without it having to be their primary focus from the start. It is project-based and flexible, which works well alongside a research position, though income can be unpredictable in the early stages. It is worth noting that even at the freelance stage, having a small body of work to show prospective clients makes a real difference. A few writing samples or public-facing pieces go a long way. Some people freelance as a bridge toward something more stable; others do it indefinitely by choice and build their entire science communication careers that way. Both are valid career trajectories. 

Staff or in-house roles are salaried positions, full-time or part-time, where you are directly employed by and embedded within an organisation such as a university, research institute, museum, NGO, pharma company, or government agency. Science communication agencies are also worth considering: these firms partner with organisations to provide subject matter expertise, meaning you are employed by the agency but work in support of their clients. This can be a particularly good entry point for researchers with broad scientific training who want variety in their day-to-day work. A portfolio demonstrating your work counts toward getting hired, and it does not have to be writing alone. Design pieces, social media campaigns, podcasts, webinars, and case studies are all valid, alongside any record of public engagement activities or demonstrated experience in a relevant area. Many people arrive at staff roles after a period of volunteering or freelancing, but not always. Some researchers move directly into institutional communications roles without those intermediate steps, particularly if their research background maps closely onto the employer's needs.

It is also worth knowing that some labs, universities, and nonprofits hire early-career staff into research assistant roles that include communication duties, supporting both research and communication work simultaneously. For researchers who are not ready to commit fully to a transition, this can be a useful bridge into a science communication career.

The important thing to take away is that none of these routes is the correct one. The science communication career field does not seem to have a fixed sequence, and trying to follow someone else's path precisely rarely works. What matters more is finding an entry point that fits your current situation and building from there.

Building science communication experience while still in the lab

Researchers consistently underestimate how much relevant science communication experience they have accumulated simply by doing and presenting their research. Presenting at lab meetings, writing grant background sections, explaining your project to a collaborator from a different field, helping a newer student understand a technique, or hosting student tours and industry visits: all of this involves translating complex information for a specific audience, which is the core of any science communication job. The skills are there, and recognising them is the first step toward demonstrating them to someone outside academia.  The next step is turning that experience into a portfolio that works for your science communication career.

Understanding science communication job titles

Because "science communicator" appears so rarely as an official job title, knowing what to actually search for is one of the most practical things you can do when exploring entry level science communication jobs. The field broadly organises into seven lanes, each with different audiences, outputs, and employer types. Most people find that their existing background maps naturally onto one or two of these lanes, even if they eventually move across them. The same role can carry different names depending on the country and type of employer, so treat this as a starting reference rather than an exhaustive list. Roles marked with an * asterisk are typically entry level.

Public journalism, media and editorial 

This lane includes roles focused on reporting, interviewing, and explaining science for general audiences across print, video, and podcast formats, as well as roles shaping manuscripts, journals, and content workflows for scientific and scholarly audiences.

Relevant Job Titles: Science journalist, science writer, junior science writer*, press officer, media relations officer, editorial assistant*, copy editor*, publications coordinator*, associate science communicator*

Institutional and digital communication

This lane covers roles managing an organisation's public-facing science messaging, including press releases, faculty stories, annual reports, media pitches, and digital content across social media and multimedia platforms.

Relevant Job Titles: Communications officer, communications manager, communications assistant, science communications assistant*, public information officer, institutional writer*, grant writer, research communications officer*, social media manager, science communications and social media specialist*, content strategist

Outreach and engagement

This lane encompasses roles focused on building relationships between organisations and the communities they serve, through events, exhibits, workshops, and public programmes.

Relevant Job Titles: Outreach coordinator, outreach assistant*, public engagement specialist, science educator, education coordinator*

Medical and technical communication

This lane covers roles translating complex technical material into clear documents for clinicians, regulators, patients, and industry stakeholders.

Relevant Job Titles: Medical writer, medical communications assistant*, regulatory writer, research and science communication assistant*

Marketing and commercial communication

This lane covers roles in biotech, pharma, and R&D companies where science communicators support product marketing, brand messaging, and commercial content strategies. 

Relevant Job Titles: Marketing specialist*, content strategist, medical communications assistant*

Policy and government

This lane covers roles supporting science policy, public health communication, and grant programme management.

Relevant Job Titles: Policy analyst, science policy officer

Cross-sector

This lane includes roles that do not sit neatly within a single employer type or communication format, but appear across multiple sectors wherever there is a need to translate scientific information for specific audiences such as patients, caregivers, or communities.

Relevant Job Titles: Patient education specialist*, Health communication specialist*, research impact officer, knowledge translation specialist, science communication consultant 

*Entry level role

For some sectors, searching by employer type is more efficient than searching by title. A biotech company and a university might both be looking for essentially the same person but advertising the science communication role under completely different names. Knowing who hires and what the work looks like is what the next section covers.

The overview below is based on general knowledge of the field rather than a formal survey or dataset. Employer types and role distributions in science communication careers have not been comprehensively studied by the authors of this article. This article reflects patterns commonly observed across the science communication community.

Who hires and what the work looks like

As we discussed in our introduction to science communication (link and correct title when ready), the range of employers in this field is broad. Here we go into more detail about what each employer type actually hires for and what the work looks like in practice.

Universities and research institutes are among the most visible employers for science communication jobs, particularly for researchers still within academia. They hire for outreach coordination, press and media relations, internal communications, and alumni engagement, with roles typically sitting within communications offices or research support departments.

NGOs and patient organisations need people who can translate complex health information into accessible content for patients, caregivers, families, and non-specialist audiences in general. There is also growing demand in legal and policy contexts where scientific literacy is essential to the work. These science communication roles matter considerably and are frequently overlooked by researchers who assume the field is primarily journalism.

Pharma, biotech and life science companies hire across medical writing, regulatory affairs communications, internal and external science communication, and roles in marketing. This includes scientific service providers such as contract research organisations (CROs) and contract development and manufacturing organisations (CDMOs), which need to communicate highly specialised services to potential clients and partners. Social media management and external-facing content are relevant across all of these organisations.

Government agencies hire for science policy work, public health communication, and grant program management. If you are interested in how science intersects with governance and public decision-making, this sector rewards researchers who can combine scientific training with an understanding of how policy processes work.

Science and natural museums and cultural institutions hire for exhibit development, public programming, and education coordination. These science communication jobs are not always the first that come to mind for researchers from academic backgrounds, who may not immediately think of museums and cultural institutions as professional employers. In practice they represent serious, skilled work that combines scientific knowledge with education, design, and public engagement, and in many cases offer a kind of creative latitude that other sectors do not.

Media outlets and publishing houses hire science journalists, editors, and producers across print, video, and podcast formats. This corner of the science communication job market is competitive and tends to reward people who have been writing or producing consistently for some time before applying.

Science communication agencies and science-adjacent marketing firms work across multiple clients on a project basis and often hire generalists who can move comfortably between different scientific domains. For researchers with broad training or interdisciplinary backgrounds, these can be a particularly good fit.

Scientific art, including residencies, multidisciplinary collaborations between scientists and artists, and institutional support roles, is a smaller sector but a real one. It is less predictable as a science communication career path, but worth knowing it exists, particularly for researchers who sit at the intersection of scientific and creative work.

Where to start based on your background

If you are not sure which entry level science communication jobs or sectors to prioritise, your existing background is a reasonable starting point. Researchers and PhD holders with a STEM background are well positioned across a wider range of lanes than they might expect. Institutional communication roles value subject fluency and credibility with expert audiences. Medical and technical writing roles in pharma, biotech, and CROs reward deep scientific knowledge. Outreach and engagement roles suit researchers who enjoy public-facing work and community interaction. Policy and government roles are a strong fit for those interested in how science shapes public decision-making. Those with journalism or English backgrounds often find the strongest entry into public journalism, editorial work, and multimedia roles. Communications and marketing backgrounds translate well into institutional communications, public information roles, and social media positions.

These are starting points, not fixed lanes. People cross between them regularly, and a portfolio that demonstrates range can open doors that a single background might not.

What employers expect

Across most science communication jobs, what employers want to see comes down to four things: content samples you have produced, a demonstrated understanding of your audience, impact evidence such as subscriber numbers, event attendance, or community growth, and some signal that you can work across different topics or with different kinds of stakeholders. For entry level science communication jobs such as internships and assistant roles in particular, a portfolio often matters as much as formal experience. Your portfolio does not need to be extensive to be convincing, but it does need to exist and it needs to honestly represent what you can do.

We cannot hand you a map to this field because we don't have one. Most people find their way into a science communication career through a combination of persistence, luck, and someone pointing them in the right direction at the right time. That is why building connections in the field matters as much as building a portfolio. Seek out people who have walked this path before you, whether through mentorship programmes, online communities, or simply reaching out to someone whose work you admire. Hopefully this article is one of those moments of being pointed in the right direction. The landscape is broader than it looks from the outside, and there is genuinely room in it for researchers who want to do this work. The next step is showing that you are one of them, and that means building relevant science communcation skills and putting together a portfolio that reflects what you can do, even if you are just starting out.

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