Also some interesting statistics for UK PhDs:

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

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.

I think what is making these circumstances even worse, is that industry is also not at all waiting for these phd students. There were several nature articles were professors said that we have to stop to produce so many post docs because there is absolutely no need for their expertise. People tend to think that there will be always something to do and that there are so many possibilities for these highly educated people but taking in account what a myriad of post docs is entering the job market every year....barely a chance.

I think this strategy is mostly government and university driven to get cheap research staff that is so desperate that it is willing to work for low salaries.

yeah, at £33k a year the post docs I am applying for have a really low salary...

If it refers to what I have written : Of course it is ! We have people with a 3-years bachelor degree in Germany that immediately earn more than that when they leave university. Considering your education this is a rather low salary. You just have been too long in this system to see that ;) If there would be only 20% of the present phd students, companies would have to pay higher salaries to get the good people but supply and demand is completely imbalanced at the moment. No matter what you pay you will always find someone who does the job. You can see a clear difference if you look in the more promising fields. Does somebody really thinks that there are people with a phd in computer science who work for 33k a year outside universities? They usually also get a much higher phd salary (often a 100% position, compared to a 50% in other fields). The only difference is that there are fewer phd students. Government and industry definitely benefit a lot from the cheap and huge research output that is mainly produced by temporary staff like post docs and phds.

I've only been in the 'system' about 4 years. I have, however, worked in other 'systems' such as banking, where I worked far harder than I've ever worked in my PhD and probably ever will in any subsequent career, for a final salary of about £25k, so yeah £33k seems pretty damn good to me.

Also, I think we are lucky to be able to learn a bit about a subject and get a PhD. I learnt just as much about finance, people management, computer programs etc as I have about my PhD subject and I didn't receive any qualifications for that and I certainly wasn't considered an expert. A PhD is nothing special - it's just a way to make people think they have achieved something. It's no more or less than any other achievement, so why should you expect more than someone working in finance, or any other job?

Furthermore, the average salary in the UK is about £27k, so it's more than that, and it's only a starting salary, and it's about £7k more than many American postdocs earn, and most of the people where I'm from work for £20k a year, so yeah I'm pretty happy with it.

I don't know what finance degree you hold and maybe that is UK specific but usually you earn much more in the finance sector, especially because there is so much more scope for raises compared to science. I doubt that you will work for 25k for a long period if you do a good job.

Well, you might not get these fancy two letters in front of your name, but you gain work experience, which is, at least in companies, much more valuable. With a few years of work experience your salary should definitely increase and you are able to get positions with more responsibility and so on…

I btw don’t expect more money as someone who works in finance but a salary that is appropriate to 8 or 9 years of study (bachelor, master and phd in most countries). You compare a post doc salary you have with 30 to a salary someone can have at 23 after finishing a bachelor degree.

This is also not just about money. Most people start a phd out of financial reasons and neither would I. It is also about the fact that universities lure you into this system by concealing about the terrible perspective most of the phd students will have not just in academia but also in industry ! Instead they produce fancy ads were they tell you that there are thousands of possibilities for careers outside of academia and, in fact, there are possibilities but not at all enough positions for all the phd students that finish. Sure, some of them will find something in project management and some maybe end up in R&D but I’ve talked to enough post docs and experienced enough application processes to know that there is a huge amount of post docs that are just left empty-handed. Nobody in industry searches for such an amount of post docs. They create a massive over supply of post docs on purpose, which returns in an imbalanced demand and supply, high competition and low salaries. If you can hire 2 phds for the price of one you easily double your research output. And what do we do about undeniable bad conditions? We consider ourselves lucky and are grateful that we are allowed to work in science at all. They could pay less, couldn’t they? At least you worked in a field you love until you are 35
Of course it was our decision but it is still irresponsible to create such an oversupply of scientists without giving a fuck what will happen to those people after their temporary contract ended. So many young scientists fear the time after their post doc contract ends. I highly doubt that would be the case if you easily find a job in industry. In the company I work at the moment they get over a hundred targeted applications for a researcher position, so not at all different to academia. Most professors also agree that something has to change but somehow they are also just part of the system and adapted at one point

I should have said: that was a position of responsibility. £25k was a managerial salary.

I just don't agree that experience and working your way up in a company is a better alternative than a starting salary of £33k. I would probably have got another promotion and be on £33k had I stayed within the bank. So, that would have taken me to the age of 30 to earn £33k, whereas if I did I a PhD from undergrad I could have been earning £33k at 24.

There might be many more opportunities in other places, and definitely in London, but in the rest of the UK, that was pretty good going for the financial sector.

Also, if prospective PhD students are lured into the system thinking they would be better off financially, then maybe they won't make a very good PhD student. It's not hard to find out that academic jobs are scarce.

Having worked in both finance and science, I can assume you science offers the better prospects, at least for me. There's noone monitoring your every move, most people you work with are intelligent, you don't have to be at work at 9am on the dot, noone cares if you leave early, you have plenty of time to chat with colleagues, then you faff about in the lab, write a few papers, mark some work, attend a few conferences/lectures/seminars... Yeah, and because of this I work long hours, but guess what, I did the same at the bank but I was stressed all the time from all the crap I had to do and endless emails/phone calls/IM/referrals etc and never being able to stop for even 5 minutes. I know what I would rather be doing.

Switch to working in a office/bank/shop and see what I mean.

Well, You would get 33k IF a company hires you after your post doc and pays you the university salary (taking in acount that probably 80% of the post docs in the end leave university). I assume that you have a permanent contract in that bank. Morover, 24 might be the post doc age in UK, but hardly anywhere elese. In Scandinavi you are usually over 30 and in most other countires also in your later 20 or 30.

I tried to not limit the discussion to money. I say that they lure you into a system that leaves a significant amount of people with a comparable low salary in a field unrelated to their phd. People always talk like it would be so much easier to get company jobs but that is definitely not the case. Jobs are a scare in general, especially in biology.

I can only say that your bank experience does not at all relates to what I know from Germany. So I don't want to judge that. In Germany you definitely earn more money and you work your 40 hours a week. If you work more, you get paid more. Of course I also know the stories from investment bankers that almost live in their offices but they often have a salary like your research group combined...
But that was not at all my point. If you get a 33k position after you left university that is nice but this is just not the case for a lot of post docs.

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!

...if we did, it would be :)

Ok, so I have cut my outgoings to the absolute minimum: £700 pm and I manage to pay my mortgage, all my bills, run a car and eat well on this. Of course, it leaves absolutely no money for socialising, treats, repairs or extras. If I earn £33k, my take home monthly pay will be £2100pm.

Obviously I don't want to survive spending £700pm for the rest of my life, but on £2100 I could spend £1500pm and still save a decent amount and afford pretty much whatever I want. I would hope to earn more than this in the future, but if I don't, I could be doing far worse than earning £33k.

The situation doesn't sound too good in Canada so I don't think I will be applying for a post there any time soon!

After all, we are all heading towards retirement and old age regardless of our intellectual prowess and academic achievement so the sooner we start thinking about it, the more realistic our path-forward would look like ;).. I know my local McDonald's provides some retirement packages but the last 12 years being at the grad school and being a research associate, I had not manage to contribute any because the uni's have no plans! :(