I know the UK PhD’s finish sooner that the ones in the US and Canada but 24 years is a bit too early… In Canada the average age for finishing your PhD is around 31 years old. (ideal condition high-school diploma 18 years + 4 years bachelor + 2 years masters + 5 years PhD = 27 years but the ideal condition barely happens!)

The average age for postdocs in Canada and the US is in 35~37 years old when they finish so getting $36,000 (£19,500) to $42,000 (£22,000) (and of course before tax) is not really a huge amount of money… I can tell from my first postdoc experience (2 years a good ranking Canadian university), I was getting paid $36,000 per year ($3000 or £1650 per month) but you have to deduct 29% income tax + other insurances, I was taking roughly $1,900 (£1050) per month home. Note that the gross domestic product (at purchasing power parity) per capita in Canada is roughly $45,000 (£24500), so I was getting less than national average but above the poverty line (poverty line in Canada is around $30,000 or £16,500).

I have visited UK many times and always wonder how you can live with the advertised salaries! Everything seems too expensive over there…. Even £33,000 salary seems too little when I compare the cost of renting, mortgage, food, transportation, let alone saving for your retirement!

And I like this comment from the second article:


A major reason for the problem is that universities are dishonest and incompetent as hell. Realistic chances of an academic career are not communicated before people apply. An endless obsession with "capacity building" i.e. training new students, when the issue is retention of staff. All to justify what for many disciplines is a ponzi scheme. Thus wasting money and people's lives.

Other disciplines there is a clear need for research staff, but here a large pool of PhDs mean that senior academics can get away with poor management, and treating people with years of experience appallingly. I suspect that government puts up with it as it creates a large pool of highly skilled workers who are desperate for jobs as consequence will overlook and accept working for companies with dubious ethics e.g. Tobacco company. Similar to Law where lots of naive people go into hoping to campaign for human rights but end up working for corporations protecting intellectual property.

The end result of this is that at a senior level universities are run by people who have dubious grasp of ethics, and quite happy to exploit young, naive and frequently vulnerable people and never have to get to grips with managing resources properly.

Don't get me wrong there are brilliant ethical people in academia. Unfortunately they tend to get exploited or quit, while the narcissistic sociopaths with no grasp of ethics and happy to take credit for other people's work end up running the place.

Also some interesting statistics for UK PhDs:

Doctor, doctor … we’re suffering a glut of PhDs who can’t find academic jobs

@ TheEngineer…To my experience for most of the advertised postdoc positions, the prof usually have someone in mind.One reason for this could be that because these postdocs jobs are short term, the profs usually want to get someone that they know or work with before so they can maximize their research output.

The original the Economist article also can be found here:

A bit old but it is still valid:

Thanks Satchi :)

Thanks Satchi and Ellie. Since my last post, the situation has gotten more problematic. The supervisor is leaving the university for another job and the university has sent me a letter that they no longer consider extending my second year. The industry partner now wants to use another university or industrial labs for the rest of their contract but they have not found one yet in near areas. Good news is that I still get paid by the industry partner but if they want to use labs that are not nearby, then it is difficult for me to stay with them. They've already asked me twice if I wanted to relocate, my answer has been "most likely no". The problem is that I have a family; my husband has a job in our city and we have a kid and a mortgage to pay and cannot just relocate for the rest of 10 months of my contract with them. I am doing my best to stay afloat but who knows for how much more!

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/science/2015/02/13/small-elite-network-heavily-represented-academia-study-suggests/4tHzZicp3gMaRYNdaTQ8jJ/story.html#comments

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/science/2015/02/13/small-elite-network-heavily-represented-academia-study-suggests/4tHzZicp3gMaRYNdaTQ8jJ/story.html#comments

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005

Have you considered doing a masters instead?

I feel that my second postdoc (in partnership with industry) comes to an end soon and I did not benefit from it and it has become such waste of already 2 years of my life. I have not get any results and have not published anything. I started application for my second postdocs in Jan 2013 and by the time I had it approved it was Jan 2014 which I technically started the postdoc and this is the date that all problems started. On the first day of postdoc,I met with industry partner and they told me that in addition to my proposal they would like me to help them in few of their other work as well. My university supervisor also agreed that I help them. But those short tasks eventually became routine with no real research work. Meanwhile my supervisor position at the university has also weakened and now she is only a sessional lecturer at my university (downgraded from associate prof) and she has lost the control of the labs to a second prof which is not interested in my work. The industry partner is not interested in my proposal either but they are okay for keeping me around just because. I feel that my uni supervisor also does not care as she has other positions in a different institute and I only have saw her once for few minutes in the last 6 months. I also learnt that the prof who took in charge of my prof lab has also mentioned that his ten students are priorities when it comes to use lab equipment and I shall get permission from him in advance to use the lab. He already denied me twice in using an equipment. Now I technically have a year left from my 2 years postdoc but I do not see anything comes out of as I have 2 years of work to be done in a year without having a proper lab, a supportive supervisor or anyone in industry partner to show any interest in my work. What should I do?

A good read...

Charlie.
You should not care. Scientific and technological progress happens where it is least expected. The university labs are full of types of snobs. I used to work with a guy who believed 95% of people he saw at any given day, did not matter to him no matter who they were and what status they had. I am not saying this is a correct behaviour, make the first move, be friendly and open but once you feel you are being ignored, just ignore them.