Australian Physicists: Salary, Job Growth & Day-to-Day Work

[krixx]

Greetings all, I need some advice from people who are currently working as physicists in Australia.
I want to undertake a study of physics and work in the field, I am not entirely sure what specific area at the moment but it would probably be in particle physics or astrophysics or even theoretical physics as these are my main areas of interest. I won’t bore you with too much background and my reasoning for wanting to pursue this career but I can assure you that I have always had a passion for science and I know that no matter what I am doing in life that I always will. I have recently began considering actually following my passion in life and since letting this thought into my head I have felt profoundly different.. its probably a mixture of extreme excitement and uncertainty.
My day to day thoughts are driven by two things. The first is my love of science and the second is my desire to be well off financially speaking the latter of which leads me to my questions to you.
Question 1: Can you give me a good idea of what a Theoretical, particle, astro physicist makes after completing their education?

Question 2: what amount of growth could I achieve in these fields (financially and authoritatively) and where can these jobs take me?

Question 3: what EXACTLY do people in these jobs do on any given day?

Sorry if these are broad questions but I really am trying to get the best idea I can before I make the plunge. Responses will be GREATLY appreciated!

 

[sam_021]

I don't know about Australia but in the UK theoretical particle, astrophysics and etc .. are really getting their funding cut. So unless you are the best it would be really hard to get a job/post doc after you do a PHD.
If money is a main objective then fields that are very important to industry right now have a lot of money in them e.g. computational fluid dynamics and quantum computing.
Good thing about these fields is if you get bored of academia you could always go into industry.