Hi All,

I'm considering my PhD at the moment and I just wanted some clarity on the career pathways that can be taken.

I understand that if you want to work in academia, you normally complete 2-4 postdoc jobs first and then apply for assistant professor roles? I personally am not interested by lecturing/teaching that much and much prefer to stay in the lab - so I'm thinking that academia is not for me? Is there senior research jobs in academia that do not require lecturing?

The other side of the coin is industry, although when I try and search for jobs etc. to look at potential salaries and requirements I do not find much information. I see a lot of post-doc jobs offering 25-35k. Hypothetically, would somebody with lets say 10 years experience in a related field still be on the 25-35k? I assume salary would increase with experience but I've yet to see jobs that offer higher without becoming managerial which again strays from the laboratory. After working as a research assistant/associate etc. for a few years would you then go on to apply for senior research scientist jobs? or is there another job title not I'm not away of.

Please excuse my ignorance on the matter, as I am only recently playing with the idea of a PhD and have yet to fully understand that it entails and the possible career prospects from it.

Thanks.

Hi Connor.

I'm currently four months into a PhD in the life sciences and constantly think about how I would like my career to pan out personally. I've been given some really good advice by people who have climbed right to the top in our field so will try to pass that advice on as best I can...

You're pretty much right about academia. Two to four post doc positions before you have a shot at a faculty position BUT those post-doctoral roles have to have yielded some really high impact publications. Otherwise forget it, you're going to be a research assistant and never really progress further than that. Career progression in academia is not great. However, if you're good enough/fortunate enough to get those good papers and you don't like the idea of a heavy teaching load but would still like to be a principal investigator then look at 'research institutes' rather than universities. Teaching isn't integral to them, research is. Whilst some staff will take on teaching work at associated universities, it very much takes a back seat. However, if you think you're going to be in the lab doing work at the bench if you aren't teaching as a principal investigator then you need to think again. As a PI most of your day to day tasks would be taken up by grant writing, managing budgets, managing your group, keeping up with the literature, sitting on various committees and all sorts of other tasks, as well as trying to direct the research of everyone in your group.

And this leads me on to industry nicely... if you want to be in a senior position in science, be it academia or industry, you need to give up on any idea of doing a lot of work at the bench. It just ain't gonna happen!

That said, doing a PhD has been the best decision I ever made, I love my work and no matter what happens in the future I'm glad I did it.