I'm handing in my PhD thesis tomorrow so this is a well timed question :-) I have learnt a lot from my studies and feel that I have gained important skills in

I'm handing in my PhD thesis tomorrow so this is a well timed question :-) I have learnt a lot from my studies and feel that I have gained important skills in attacking problems and evaluating my solutions to them that will be useful inside and outside of academia. I couldn't have picked up these skills in the 15 years I spent in industry. There may be many examples of people who can do great science without a PhD but for me the experiences of the last 4 years would be essential if I were to get a job in academia. As it is, I will be going back to programming -- I feel the academic job market is overly competitive for somebody my age.