Scientist, Space Systems at DSTL

The following is a Graduate Review for DSTL.

DSTL scores 3.3/5 based on 389 reviews.

All reviews are based exclusively on results of feedback from employees from DSTL. Employees are asked to rate DSTL on a wide range of work place topics, which is broken down through star ratings on the right hand side.

To find out how your Graduates can leave reviews of your company, please contact our Brand Manager Grant on 01825 725291.

What are the Best and Worst things about your job?

Best

Interesting work.
Ability to choose what I work on.
Freedom to approach problems however I see fit.
Huge level of trust in employees - left to manage your own time and workload.
Flexibility and freedom to come and go at whatever time of day within reason, work from home if not needed in the office, take Friday off if you have a few hours built up.
Development opportunities including international travel for conferences etc.
I get on really well with my coworkers who are mostly also recent grads.
Exposure to industry and ability to get involved with really cool projects.
I do literal rocket science.
Attitude is very relaxed, not expected to work more than your 37 hours for the week however overtime is paid if you do or you can build up flexi-time to take whenever.

Worst

IT systems often prevent me from doing my job since everything needs to be secure - there are ways around this but they are cumbersome and add time, complexity and frustration to what should be simple procedures.
IT systems are old and take a long time to be updated - only recently got HD monitors and new laptops and Windows 10 have been coming soon for a while.
Online internal systems for timesheets, expenses etc are really bad.
Pay is very low for graduates straight out of university but is much more competitive after a year or so, however it starts to diverge again for the mid career levels compared to industry or even main MoD rates and pay increases are stuck below inflation.

What is the annual salary for this role?

Starting salary: £27,000 - £29,000

Current salary: £27,000 - £29,000

What hours do you actually work, on average?

Start: 10:00

Finish: 18:00