Careers guide
A sector-by-sector guide to travel
Travel and tourism is one of the UKâs largest industries, witha range of roles to suit all interests.
Rhodri Andrews takes a look at some of the key sectors to consider.
Accommodation
From holiday parks to city hotels, large-scale resorts to countryside retreats, the accommodation sector has a wide wingspan. The job opportunities within it are just as diverse and there are plenty of roles, including many entry-level positions.
If you like being front of house and have strong customer service skills, there are lots of guest-facing opportunities, such as working as part of a guest relations team, an activity coordinator or enjoying something VIP-focused, for example being a butler or concierge at a luxury hotel. There are also opportunities to climb the ladder, whether thatâs organising business events and weddings, or rising to become a general manager of a hotel, responsible for its whole operation.
If you prefer to be behind the scenes, the roles available to you are no less varied. Graduate schemes offer a good entry point into the head offices of hotel chains, which can promise careers in accounts, marketing and more. And the ever-growing use of AI and advanced technologies mean the need for web developers, business analysts and database administrators is increasing.
Jobs in focus
Reservations
As part of a reservations team, youâll recommend hotels directly to customers or check availability and make bookings for clients on behalf of travel agents, usually based within the in-house sales team for a hotel or other accommodation provider.
Activity instructor
As an instructor, you might be hired by a hotel to work on site and lead adventurous activities such as river rafting and rock climbing or softer activities like Pilates, cooking classes, yoga and painting.
Spa and wellbeing manager
Many hotels feature an in-house spa and gym and operate a roster of health conscious activities. As a spa and wellbeing manager, youâll be responsible for choosing the treatments offered, managing rotas for therapists, plotting fitness class
Aviation
The aviation industry employs more than 350,000 staff, according to Innovate UK, all of whom help to serve and facilitate the huge numbers of passengers passing through our airports â nearly 300 million of them in 2024.
Airline pilots and flight crew often get the attention because theyâre the ones in the limelight, keeping passengers safe and comfortable. Being a member of the flight crew or check-in staff are good options if you have strong customer service skills, while more airlines are running their own pilot training programmes, which can take up to two years.
But these roles are just the tip of the iceberg. If you want to keep your feet on the ground at an airline, thereâs plenty of choice, including operations, engineering, maintenance and marketing. Roles at UK airports include everything from baggage handlers to air traffic control, security and ground teams (who are responsible for checking over aircraft while on the ground). If hospitality is more your thing, you could work in an airportâs private lounges or its many bars and restaurants.
Jobs in focus
Cabin crew
As a member of an airlineâs cabin crew, youâll not only make sure passengers on board are comfortable, but also ensure their safety with inflight announcements, safety demonstrations and emergency equipment checks.
Air traffic controller
Being an air traffic controller is a high-pressure job, responsible for coordinating aircraft take-offs and landings, issuing instructions to pilots and providing them with real-time updates about weather conditions and flight paths.
Baggage handler
As the name suggests, a baggage handler makes sure passengersâ luggage is loaded, unloaded and sorted in a safe and efficient manner to minimise delays and inconvenience.
Cruise
The cruise industry is big â and growing: a record 2.4 million passengers from the UK and Ireland went on a cruise in 2024. It supports thousands of jobs across British ports and UK cruise company offices, as well as vast numbers of staff working on ships navigating the worldâs rivers, oceans and remote regions.
Cruise ships come in many different shapes and sizes, from small, exclusive yachts transporting a couple of dozen passengers around France or on private charters in the Caribbean, to ocean vessels that can hold several thousand passengers and are more akin to floating resorts. The number of staff on board correlates to the size of the vessel. Bridge staff and engineers are responsible for keeping things running smoothly, but there are many others working behind the scenes, such as housekeeping staff, entertainers, spa therapists, medical professionals and more. They all enjoy a unique lifestyle, often spending months at a time away from home, but with the added benefit of being able to explore the ports of call the ship visits.
On land, harbour masters decide where ships can berth and sail within their bounds, while safety and security officers work within cruise terminals. At cruise company head offices, you could work in marketing, create social media campaigns, coordinate operations and itinerary planning or work in sales.
Jobs in focus
Shore excursions manager
As a shore excursions manager, youâll be in charge of making sure passengers enjoy themselves when theyâre off the ship, organising guided tours and onshore experiences in the ports where the cruise ship calls during its voyage.
Navigation officer
In this role, youâll be responsible for making navigational decisions, regularly checking weather reports and using satellite and radar systems to guide a ship safely, ensuring operational records are kept up to date through the shipâs log.
Trade training manager
This dynamic role means youâll host regular webinars and faceâtoâface training to keep travel agents up to date with a cruise companyâs itineraries, ships, experiences and unique selling points.
Domestic travel
Inbound tourism to the UK is big business, with a forecast 43.4 million international visitors expected to spend Ă Ă33.7 billion in 2025, according to VisitBritain. And itâs a sector complemented by domestic tourism â Brits enjoying a staycation in the UK.
There are many roles that contribute to showcasing the UK at its best to international visitors, including frontâofhouse positions dealing with guests at their accommodation, whether it be a countryside cottage, caravan park or upmarket city hotel. Or you could be a tour guide, showing visitors around some of the countryâs best heritage sites or leading walking city tours.
If you prefer to be in the âengine roomâ, you could work in a marketing team at a tourism organisation such as VisitBritain, Visit England, VisitScotland, Visit Wales or Discover Northern Ireland â marketing drives a large portion of the UKâs inbound tourism, so youâd be making a valuable contribution. Or you might fancy a role at an inbound tour operator or destination management organisation, helping to plan tours for overseas audiences or negotiating contracts with British hotels and attractions.
Jobs in focus
Tour guide
As a tour guide, youâll be an expert in your destination or attraction, being a friendly face as you lead groups of travellers, sharing your own knowledge and anecdotes to help bring that place to life.
Marketing manager
Marketing is about creating brand awareness, setting the tone for advertising so it can attract visitors to a destination. Marketing roles can be found within the creative and commercial areas of a travel company or tourism board.
Social media manager
A social media managerâs role is to help drive awareness of a destination or brand. Creating social media content in line with the latest trends and managing regular posts or timely campaigns all help with this, whether you spearhead a new social strategy or help a destination go viral.
Selling travel
If you want a sales role that taps into your passion for travel as you help people craft a much-needed family holiday or big, bucket-list adventure, then being a travel agent is probably it.
Travel agents act as a crucial link between travellers, tour operators based in the UK and their many suppliers across the globe. They play an important role in knitting together the flights, hotels, tours, places and packages that best suit their customerâs budget and preferences, managing the booking process from start to finish. Travel agent jobs are more varied than you might think: they can work in a high street shop; make bookings over the phone at a call centre; or work remotely from home, either as part of a nationwide network or managing their own small business.
Some travel agents sell a mix of holiday types, while others specialise in their own niche, such as cruise, sports tourism or luxury travel, or perhaps a specific region instead. There are many ways travel agents can bolster their knowledge, whether itâs through training, networking with suppliers or gaining first-hand experience on educational familiarisation trips (âfamsâ for short).
Jobs in focus
Travel agent
These are experienced and knowledgeable advisors who can recommend the best flights, hotels and tours to suit customersâ needs, seeing a booking through from start to end. They can be based in a high street shop or call centre or work remotely.
E-commerce manager
Most travel companies allow customers to book online â whether itâs making a hotel reservation, arranging a flight or booking a package holiday. E-commerce teams are therefore a vital part of the business, making sure online systems are up to date and working efficiently to process these bookings.
Business development manager
To help grow sales, a business development manager identifies gaps in the market and develops commercial opportunities for frontline sellers to promote, generating sales leads and maintaining relationships with suppliers.
Tour operators
A tour operator is a company that puts the whole holiday package together: the flights, hotels and experiences customers will enjoy during their holiday in one single booking. To stand out from the crowd, theyâll try to source unique experiences or negotiate the best rates so they can advertise the most competitive price. Many tour operators will have a specialism, whether thatâs a particular country or region, or a specific type of holiday like ski, luxury or adventures by rail.
Tour operators are involved every step of the way on a clientâs trip, from the initial enquiry to after-holiday care, helping to pull together a seamless journey, from the flight and transfer to the hotel to daily excursions, whether in a bespoke format to suit a clientâs individual preferences or a pre-packaged, off-the-shelf itinerary.
This may sound similar to a travel agentâs role, but while agents can sell various companies, tour operators will develop and sell their own holidays, giving them greater control over what goes into every itinerary.
Roles can be wide-ranging, from back-office careers in finance, operations and trade relations to working with suppliers and making sales direct to customers.
Jobs in focus
Product manager
A product manager needs in-depth knowledge of a destination or sector so they can produce exciting itineraries and holiday packages that customers will want to book, thus giving the tour operator the edge over its competitors.
Purchaser
A purchaser, or buyer, seeks out the best suppliers, such as transport and accommodation providers, negotiates competitive rates and reviews contracts and compliance with health and safety standards.
PR manager
Whether itâs an in-house role or an external agency, tour operators hire PR managers to communicate news about their company to media organisations and content creators. They will also generate creative ideas â from hosting a press trip to showcase a destination, to pitching and writing opinion pieces â to boost a companyâs profile.
Digital technology
Technology touchpoints are everywhere in the travel industry. Whether itâs e commerce platforms powering customer bookings or global distribution systems â the industryâs bedrock for checking and booking flights and hotels â tech and travel are intertwined at every stage of the process.
You could work on a tour operatorâs marketing team designing email newsletters for customers or as a web developer keeping websites up to date and secure. Or you could be a data analyst, collecting statistics and business insights around topics such as the most searched-for destinations and holiday types.
Innovative tech is also becoming more commonplace, whether itâs helping to develop apps that store customersâ itineraries or AI-powered solutions to help increase revenue. Virtual reality is also being used to convert customers, while AI is supplementing the human touch in travel, from helping to manage bookings to answering customer questions. Technologyâs everyday role in the travel industry is only going to increase.
Jobs in focus
Web developer
This role is essential in enabling travel companies to offer their customers an easy and straightforward online experience, from the moment they first interact with a website to the point of booking.
Data analyst
As a data analyst, youâll collect and assess data from across the travel industry to provide informative business insights and help companies improve the services they offer to customers.
SEO manager
Responsible for search engine optimisation (SEO), youâll tailor online content for a company or brand so itâs primed to appear high up in the results when potential customers search for holiday inspiration.
Industry-wide roles
There are many jobs that might not be specific to certain areas of the travel industry, but are equally important in ensuring the smooth running of a business.
Like any organisation, travel firms need finance and operations teams behind the scenes, while the requirement to comply with complex UK and overseas regulations means if you want to pursue a career in legal services or health and safety, your skills will come in handy. Just because some roles donât scream âtravelâ, doesnât mean theyâre not integral, or donât exist, in the industry.
Here are some of those critically important roles that span many different travel sectors.
Jobs in focus
Lawyer
Lawyers specialising in travel provide expert legal advice covering a range of issues, including compliance with government regulations, consumer protection and the resolution of disagreements between customers and travel firms.
Yield and revenue manager
In this role youâll monitor costs, prices and expenses â often spread across different currencies and dealing with several companies â while ensuring suppliers and staff in tourism-dependent countries are paid fairly.
Sustainability manager
Many travel companies take their responsibility to the planet seriously and a growing number are now channelling those efforts into a specific role, helping both the business and its customers to reduce their impact on the environment by adopting greener practices in the office and keeping an eye on the travellerâs carbon footprint.
Photo credits: Shutterstock/Drazen Zigic, Shutterstock/Einar Magnus Magnusson, Shutterstock/ Maritime Art Blog, Shutterstock/ Donal Maloney: Maritime Art Blog, Shauuterstock Antonia Diaz, Shutterstock/ People Images, Shutterstock/ Ross Helen, Shutterstock/Urbanscape