Careers in Optometry - Starting a career as an Optician with Specsavers

STEM careers in optometry

Exploring a career in optometry

A career with a view

A great choice for STEM students

Optometry attracts people who love variety and a new challenge every time they turn up for work. While there is regular routine, no day is ever the same.

You’ll be working with people from all walks of life – you’ll hear their stories and then it will be up to you to make decisions that will transform their quality of life. It’s an awe-inspiring responsibility, but it’s a big part of a role that never gets boring.

Routes into optometry

I didn’t realise how much reward I could get from doing a day-to- day eye test. When you give someone a pair of glasses for the first time and you see the difference that it makes to their life and their world it just doesn’t get tiring. It’s a lovely feeling – you’re really changing people’s lives.

Alana Moore

I love the fact that I’m not doing just optometry – being a director allows me to grow a team from scratch, and I get to see people grow their careers, while I get to learn how to run a business. The money is good – but it’s down to you, if you run your business well you can have a very good income.

Shak Hirani

It’s a good career because you can progress whether you’re clinical, commercial, customer-focused, or all three. I knew that this would be a career that would give me different options, it would be customer focused but also retail and clinically focused. Once you qualify you have to get out there – university teaches you how to be a great optometrist but after that it’s up to you to get the skills to run your own business.

Shane Abbas Bhimani

One of the really exciting parts of the role for us now is that access to new technology means that we can secure better outcomes for patients. We can now look at the different layers of the retina, see what’s going on with the pathology there and diagnose conditions like glaucoma five or six years before it even becomes an issue for the patient.

Pete Taylor

I never had a doubt that I wanted to have a career where I could make a difference. My love of science and academia, my passion and interest in healthcare and my competitive nature and drive led me to a career in optometry.

Lisa Marshall

It can be like being part of a big family when you’re a director – we’ve got 40 team members of staff at the store. I like the flexibility and the security of this role, which is really important for me and my own family.

Abby Hicks

It’s a career that’s great if you want to help people, have opportunities to develop, earn good money, work full- or part-time, have career breaks or study, and have the chance to shape the way that eye care is delivered. There’s such a wide choice of things that you can do.