I am due to finish in December, and possibly have an option of working full time for 3 months in a company which looks attractive. The flip side is I will undoubtedly forget a lot during the time away - and just before writing up. I do think I can finish the PhD, but it will be harder if I take time off. Any thoughts?

Many thanks,
Ingenieur.

Can't you finish first and then do the three month work?

Nope.

In which case I guess you need to decide whether you will be able to work well enough to get it done in time - including potentially giving time to it on evenings and weekends. If you are quite a dedicated person who works under pressure, then I'd imagine you could.

Will the job lead to a permanent post after the PhD?

Worth a discussion with your supervisors if you have good relationships with them?

I should explain that I can take 3 months leave from the PhD and then come back to it. So the concern is about forgetting the material, but I suppose I can always look at it at weekends as you say.

I think it depends on how useful you think either is for your long term career. If you think the PhD is not necessary, but the 3 months would give you a leg-up then do that. However, if you don't see yourself getting a job without the PhD then I personally would get the PhD out of the way and *then* look for other roles.

Also, although best intentions may be there to work evenings/weekends on the PhD, once you've worked all week and your gf/bf/family/friends are wanting to see you, or you just want to catch up on some telly, then that may go out the window.

I can get a job 'relatively easily' as I have relevant experience and qualifications for some roles. No problem - no telly/gf/family/friends hassling me to worry about. But, I have some cash issues right now, and in fact really want to get away from the PhD for a bit and get into a different environment. I probably don't need a PhD to work there but it looks like lots of people who do work there have PhDs so it wouldn't be a bad thing to finish. And also for personal reasons I'm sure most people here understand.

For the long-term career I think the work would be great experience.