Finding a Good Job Post Grad: Physics PhD

[super_position]

Good day all,
I'm on the cusp of venturing into the realm of graduate school in physics. I'm set on physics simply for the love of the subject, and I'm willing to risk a more lucrative career for a much more fulfilling subject.
Everyone knows the jobs in academia aren't easily found. But career's in general with a physics PhD are wide. So what would a subjective guess at the probability of working years on a physics education and getting a master's degree or a PhD and being left high-and-dry without a career in physics, physics related, scantily physics related fields?

 

[Dick]

Pretty good, actually. Definitely over 50%. You'd better be sure you love it. If you do then failure is fun too. More seriously, if you go into an applied field like solid state physics as opposed to grand unified theories you can probably beat that 50%.

Signed, Bitter

 

[mgb_phys]

From my dept (astronomy) I would say that 50% went into academic jobs, or at least a couple of post docs. The others were split between the city (derivatives quants) and technical industry - not necessarily directly using their speciality but doing software, mathematical modelling, technical consultancy and general technical project management.

Mu PhD was experimental astronomy - I built an infrared interferometer. Since then I have done 2 postdocs building astronomical instruments, worked for an international technical consultancy, a software startup and now I am a software engineer/inventor/ideas person for a company making laser measuring systems.