Blue sky thinkers: The environmental sector wants recruits from a broad range of degree subjects

"We've got every possible degree subject here – from geography and classical civilisation to marketing, business and Anglo-Saxon English – and we will continue to take a broad brush view of recruitment because our skills needs are so diverse," says Phil Day, HR director at the Energy Saving Trust.

"One of our prime jobs is to communicate an energy saving message to the 60 million or so people who live in the UK and for that we need great communicators, project managers, strategists and people with the skills necessary to influence others just as much as we need pure scientists to translate what is going on."

Just as the Trust – a not-for-profit organisation funded primarily by the Government – will never restrict its recruitment drive to scientists, nor does it expect only confirmed environmental activists to join up.

"Of the 230 or so people who work here, most would be sympathetic to the cause of energy efficiency and some may ride bicycles and perhaps refuse to go on airlines. But the Trust isn't Greenpeace and you don't have to be an activist to care about the long-term effects of environmental mismanagement on the planet," says Day.

Caroline Rams, a 24-year-old PR executive with the Trust is a good example of the range of skills required by the fast-growing environmental sector. After doing A-levels in geography, history and politics, she did a BA, rather than a BSc in environmental management, and considers her job to be far more about communication than science.

"By taking our message into people's homes and giving them impartial advice, we can make a real impact on how we all live our lives and can have a real impact on climate change without blinding people with figures or being worthy," she says.

New engineering graduates looking askance at their job prospects in the current economic climate should look beyond the traditional engineering employers to consider the role they can play in managing rising sea levels, says Richard Horrocks, flood risk skills manager at the Environment Agency.

"If you have a BEng or MEng after your name and worry that traditional engineering firms may be in the doldrums just now, your practical skills and knowledge can be put to enormous use in managing the impact of climate change on homes and businesses," he says.

"As far as the Agency is concerned, preventing damage caused by flooding is just as important as combating the effects of pollution – perhaps more so nowadays – and that requires just the mix of skills that an engineering graduate has.

"While there is enormous competition between environmental science graduates for a plum role at EA," he adds, "the real skills shortage is on the hard-hat side and that's where we are making particular recruitment efforts just now."

If a career in the environment can, in some organisations, be as appropriate for engineers and arts graduates as it is for environmental scientists, then over at the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) in Southampton, the hunt is focused on geologists, geophysicists, chemists and mathematicians.

"We will certainly take geographers for example onto our postgrad programmes, but we would probably expect them to do a one-year conversion course first if their first degree wasn't in pure science," says Dr Rachel Mills, deputy head of school, education.

Aside from a sound grasp of scientific principles, the study of oceanography requires advanced problem-solving skills, teamworking and the ability collect data in hazardous environments, she adds, and that requires far more than the desire to look after our earth.

"Many young people have a passion to study dolphins or volcanoes but our job is to turn them into employable graduates and postgraduates who can make predictions of what various hazards will do to animals and humans and to understand those predictions in a rigorous scientific sense," she says.

"This may well mean that they find themselves collecting data collection in dangerous places like mountains or near volcanoes or in regions that can only be accessed via boat or beach."

While around 50 per cent of NOC graduates work in conservation or the environment, many others will find employment in firms that exploit, rather than preserve the environment; in global mining or minerals firms for example.

Dr Mills adds: "oceanography is a very big subject with a lot of subsections and specialisms. Climate change isn't about to go away though and whether it's people or critters you mostly care about, the continuing impact of flooding on humans and animals means there will never be a shortage of jobs in the field."

'As long as I have the ocean close by me, I'll be happy'

Debbie Hembury, 26, who has A-levels in biology, chemistry and maths, did her first degree in oceanography with chemistry and is currently studying the Montserrat volcano as part of her postgraduate degree at the School of Ocean and Earth Science at Southampton University.

"I travel regularly to the Caribbean to watch the progress of the volcano from the safety of the purpose-built observatory over there and it is highly likely that the massive dome that the volcano builds every couple of years or so will erupt sometime soon.

My interest in the environment grew while I was at school and although oceanography has many different strands, I see my role as being all about understanding biogeochemical cycles and how the chemical make up of the sea can have implications for problems such as climate change.

The Montserrat project is looking at the effect of volcanic deposits on sea water chemistry and involves me taking samples from the ocean. It could be dangerous work – after all, the volcano is highly unstable and half the island is already an exclusion zone – but the whole point of the monitoring work done by the observatory is that we all get prior warning if something big is about to blow.

One day, I'd like to work overseas on some big, ocean-related project; perhaps at an environmental consultancy agency, or as a researcher or lecturer. As long as I have the ocean close by me, I'll be happy."