tenure and other issues for country-hopping professionals

[biascut]

Hiya. I'm in my fourth year of my PhD at a UK university, which means I don't get any more funding and I have to hand in by September. (I could theoretically enter the job market now, but the advice I've been getting from my supervisor and my peers who are a few years ahead of me is to get the damn thing written and handed in, and then go on the

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[biascut]

I applied for a JRF this week, actually! - which is probably the last academic application I'll make this year. I'm really quite into the idea of taking a year out to work in the private sector, staying in Dublin and being able to finish my thesis, viva, and then prepare articles and research proposals at a slightly more leisured pace.

I think I'm more concerned about location than I am about the kind of department it is. I love living in big cities, but I'm still ambivalent about whether I'd rather work in a RAE 5* department, with really inspiring research going on around you and classes full of bright, middle-class white kids (like myself!) or to work in post-1992 institution and be teaching a much more diverse student body with a lot more from non-traditional backgrounds. Both of those sound good. But I've also spent seven years studying the modern metropolis whilst living in a little baby medieval city, and ideally, I'd want to be in London, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Glasgow, Belfast or Dublin. (And yes - not least because there would be more opportunity for both of us to get academic jobs that way. Glitz is a few months ahead of me, but basically, we're both looking!)