Doing research in industry

When I was in academia, I didn't really know much about industry. However  I didn't really have much interest in it, I confess I somewhat looked down on industry. Then I moved to industry and since then I have tried to conduct research from within industry. I remember looking at some of the work undertaken and thinking 'my university could do this better'. I now know this is not the full story. When the work needs to be done now, often universities are not able to respond, because it takes time to recruit a postdoc. The work might only last a few months and a university wont have the spare resource to do it. Sometimes the work needs to be performed securely and universities don't have the required level of security. At these times industrial research is required and they are usually happy to take the money. Thus it is important to have competent researchers who are not in academia. This is however an opportunity for academia to widen its scope and broaden its opportunities, but it requires a culture change in expectations of how work can be resourced. Change may come but it will be slow.
So the obvious outcome is that there is some research available to people not in academia, but it is not easy to come by. I have heard a lot about the difficulties involved in acquiring funding for research, but consider this. As an academic you have dedicated funding councils whose job it is to provide hundreds of millions in research funding, based on the quality of the idea, and they will provide all the funding necessary. There are few such prospects for industrial researchers. It is expected that industry will fund its own research and that they will throw money towards universities to do some as well. Unless you  are a major company research money is very scarce and positive results will be expected. There are international pots of funding such as from the EU, but these require a significant amount of stability within the organisation to guarantee commitment of people and funding for years down the line. Universities can do this, some small companies cannot. In some cases international collaboration may also not be possible for security reasons.
Doing physics research in industry is not the easiest way to go about it, especially where there are inherent security policies within your organisation, irrespective of the nature of the research. No access to journals, no access to external data storage such as dropbox, lack of diverse facilities or high spec equipment and a project management culture that places profit (and sometimes additional profit) ahead of results are just some of the difficulties that face an industrial researcher. I have worked with some truly gifted physicists within industry and learned much about a variety of different topics, probably moreso than if I had remained in academia. I have seen many of my ideas  lie fallow and remain unpublished due to misguided pretensions about intellectual property or a diminution of profit caused by paper writing, then some years later see other researchers have the same ideas.
Then you hear that academia needs to be more industrially relevant, more focused on economic impact. But if you , as an industrial researcher apply for an academic position you can get nowhere because you have been in industry so long that your publications list is not long enough and you have not been lecturing to undergraduates. There is a 'this the way its always been' attitude within academia. Physics in particular can be prone to waxing lyrical about potential applications to get funding whilst not considering how to practically implement those applications. I remember the feeling that outside involvement can  contaminate the purity of the research. Give us your money but dont get involved. Well times have changed, and the structure of academic funding has changed and some academics, particularly in engineering have woken up to this.
The structure of academic science and research in the UK has changed, and not for the better in my opinion and whilst it persists there  will be no lack of well qualified overseas applicants for academic positions and no obvious incentive to change.
So would I recommend industrial research to the newly graduated doctoral student? Well it depends on the student. It can be very rewarding, sometimes even financially, but if its the science that drives you more often than not business gets in the way. I know that academia has its issues with administration, but at least you are in a community where research in its own right is its own justification. The likemindedness of your peers and colleagues is very valuable. You can get that in industry, and you can get many other rewarding pursuits, but don't take the essence of inquiring research  as an invariant.