Well it won't get any easier to get an academic job, that's for sure. And the research councils are generally focusing their funding on much larger projects, meaning that the chances of any individual project being funded have fallen quite significantly since 2006. Quite a lot of unis have effected a de fcto recruitment freeze until they know more about what is going to happen to their budgets (although the new OECD report suggests we actually spend 10% less on HE than most developed nations, so that might provide an impetus to maintain levels rather than reduce them).

On the other hand, quite a few acdemics I know seem to think that the numbers of peopel interested in an academic areer will slump in the near future as those paying £3000 per year UG tuition fees reach the point whereby they would be eligible for PhDs. It seems that the prospect of not getting a job until one's early 30s whilst remaining £25k or so in debt is not going to be particularly attractive. So there might be fewer candidates for positions in about 4-5 years' time, just as large numbers of current academics retire.

But these things are always conjecture. What is lacking is any truly systematic work into the current and future state of the academic job market, and there is generally resistance on the part of the profession to have such research undertaken (I think academics are scared that if it transpires that significant levels of taxpayers' money are going into PG training for people to get what become white elephant qualifications then it will reflect very badly indeed on the profession as a whole).

You could have a look at www.vitae.ac.uk to see what PG researchers generally go on to do. I currently work in market research, although I am actively trying to leave and either get back into academia or else work for the government.

It is highly unlikely you will be asked about an obscure reference in your viva. More likely they will be interested in what your contribution to nkowledge is, how you arrived at your methodology, what the altenatives might have been and why you neded up not using those alternatives, what sources of primary data you used and didn't use, and why that was the case, etc., etc.

Also remember that you can take all of your notes into the viva and consult them if you like.

It's a general rule of thumb that you can say "good question, I'd have to think about that further" as a fudge answer once in your viva without any negatiev consequences (although try not to do it too much) - you can also ask to come back to particular topics at the end. It's not an exam as such, it's a discussion about your work and what it means for the discipline as a whole. Your examiners will already have an idea of the level of correction required before the viva begins.

Obviously, I don't know what field you are in, but in mine (IR/Global Politics) lectureships are at such a premium that it is not feasible to turn down the offer of a 0.5 position. I have a fully-completed, examined PhD (ESRC-funded), 2 postdocs, 2 publications, good teaching experience have attended about 15 conferences to present my work and to network and, after applying for 135 lectureships over the past 3 years, have never had so much as an interview. Teaching experience seems to count for more than publishing in my field at present, as many of the FT jobs are 10-month Teaching Fellowships - for which significant experience of HE teaching is required (i.e. running an entire module, not simply contributing to seminar teaching as I did).

I would love to have a sniff of even a 0.5 position - so I wouldn't hesitate to take it.

Someone at your university (i.e. an academic) will be required to submit a form saying that, in their view, your thesis is worthy of consideration for viva examination. This is so that candidates do not simply submit any old tosh as a result of feeling sick of doing a PhD and want to move on. In theory, if the person completing the form has concerns about the thesis they ought to raise them and, if necessary, ask you to do further work on it before submission. Your supervisor really should have done this already and it is quite appalling that he/she has not.

Mine took 7.5 months, which was incredibly annoying as it really ended up getting in the way of the work I was trying to do for my 12-month postdoc that was going on at the time.

In my view, it is very common in the 1st year of a PhD, and especially in the 1st term, to start out being really disciplnied and doing 40 hours of work ni the 1st 2 or 3 weeks and then starting to feel like it all has no direction, that it's all just ground-clearance, and that no one within the department is pushing you to do anything anyway. This is normal. It is certainly how I felt in the first 6 months of mine - I seemed to spend far more time reading for the research methods classes I had to undertake than doing much "actual" PhD work.

Is there a specific reason why you can't simply delay travelling for another year (i.e. until the completion of a 2-year postdoc, rather than leaving a postdoc part-way through)? Leaving a fixed-term contract mid-way through without good reason (e.g. being offered a full-time post at another institution) proably isn't going to look too good in a context of extremely fierce competition for academic posts, and the consequent need to demonstrate a clear commitment to the profession.

Whereas if you go travelling after the end of a postdoc you can always cite being "out of contract" as a good reason to do so.

Well, a PhD under those conditions will take about 6-7 years, and it can be hard to find the stamina to keep going after about 3.

But PhD research is ultimately very rewarding (albeit more so when you can stand back and admire the finished product 6 months after you've finished it and the intensity has died down).

You say you want to "research and teach" - do you mean during the PhD, or do you mean you ultimately hanker after an academic career after you complete the PhD? Bear in mind that the overwhelming majority of people who complete PhDs in this day and age do not go on to academic careers - some out of choice, many others out of a lack of job opportunities in their chosen field. Without wishing to be excessively negative, of course.

For the record, I got my IR PhD from Newcastle - not Oxbridge, but still a very good institution. And, to be honest, it still hacks me off that, nearly 3 years after submitting my PhD and 2 years from passing the viva, I still can't get anywhere. I got one of my articles straight into an ISI journal with no revisions for f*ck's sake!

And I wouldn't be going around saying "pah, well you'll get work in the private sector if you don't get into academia". In the current economic climate that really isn't the case at all, I'm afraid.

You can always add mroe words, even if it's just fleshing out what's already there a little more.

Far rather that than the position I got myself into - i.e. scorching along and writing over 200,000 words and then wondering how the hell to get it down to an acceptable level without eradicating the best bits. Near-destroyed me, that did.

Well, I did network - you can always network better, I suppose, but I'm part of the Historical Sociology and Poststructural working groups, I know the people that run those groups pretty well, and I am trying to get 2 collaborative projects off the ground as well (including one with a lecturer in Miami who I met at ISA in Chiacgo in 2007), so I don't think I did too badly, considering I'm a naturally shy person who doesn't take to networking very easily.

Now the RAE is out of the way things might move a little more on the job front, although probably not until March when the allocation of research funding is made known by the research councils. But IR is a very, very tough field to crcak. I just wish I'd known more about the realities of the job market before starting the PhD, because I would have gone and done journalism training instead - ridiculous as it may seem, the odds are better even in a notoriously tought field such as the media thhan they are in academia at present - and the training is shorter and easier too.

No, I think in that case you would be viewed (by me anyway) as an equivalent of a homegrown student, on the grounds that we would both have passed through the same postgraduate research and training experience, oriented toward the UK system.

It's more when someone with no links to the UK system, but whose CV outputs are no better than someone from within the UK system, gets a lectureship here that resentment emerges.

No problem, PhDHead... ;-)

To be honest, if word starts getting out about the state of the job market in certain academic fields, then we might end up with a de facto moratorium anyway in that people are discouraged from studying for them. I certainly wouldn't advise anyone to study for a PhD in Politics at present, unless they intend to use it to work in another field and have tailored their research accordingly (e.g. local government; think-tanks).

I think it is an even more serious problem when you consider that the UK government aims to open about 15 new universities over the next 5-10 years. If the number of available candidates for lectureships drops then does academia (well, IR anyway) then end up with a sudden dearth of lecturers? Who knows?

There should certainly be incentives to keep PhDs on, though, even if 2-year research contracts.

Lest anyone gets the wrong end of the stick, I should point out that I'm not simply saying "gis a job"; however, I do think there is something very wrong with the system at present. It has always been competitive, of course, but at the moment (in my field anyway) the term "impossible" would be more accurate, and I really can't see how that benefits anyone.

Yeah, my old department now has a majority of non-UK academics working in it. Most of the non-UK ones are from North America, where it takes a lot longer to get a PhD, and where newly-qualified PhDs are invariably better qualified to teach a wider range of undergraduiate courses than their more narrowly-specialised British brethren.

But it's ridiculous. I received around 80K in UK taxpayers' money from the ESRC to do my research, and the idea of that funding was always in the light of the aged nature of the social science workforce in UK universities. The aim (as of 2000) was to ensure that sufficient funds were available to train a new generation of UK academics to ensure the survival of the industry as a world-class one. Alas, departments can simply hire who they like from overseas, as academia is one of those industries that has no visa restrictions. The money that financed my research would have better used in something like the NHS rather than being poured down the drain, as seems to have been the case with me. I strongly believe there should either be a moratorium on new PhDs or else the migration criteria in academia needs tightening up. As Sleepybug says, depts are hiring young first-time lecturers from overseas, usually out of a realisation that such people will gladly take on all of the onerous tasks that the long-term staff wiould like to offload onto some poor, unsuspecting soul, and know fine well that UK-trained PhDs are much too au fait with such practices to be relied upon to take them lying down. I know that's incredibly cynical, but I can't think of any other reason why it is the case.