Very relieved to find this forum and see I'm not the only lazy, demoralized, depressed, unfocused phd student around. But now... procrastinating on US blogs for the last ten hours or so I'm getting worried about job prospects. On these blogs everyone's obsessed with college rankings etc. Does anyone know what the situation is like in the UK? I'm at a nowhere uni, in a scattered kind of interdisciplinary field, and have no MA so I feel I'm not properly trained, not a proper professional in any field, etc. Anyone?

The situation in the UK is slightly different, but it depends on your field. Of course there are more prestigious institutions, moreover certain institutions have excellent reputations for certain subjects. However, in my area (Social Science/Politics), I have been told by a range of academics at both my own and other Unis that it is your external examiner that carries more weight than your Uni when it comes to jobs.
But of course you also need a good publishing (and often teaching) record.

I didn't realise the external was so important - that's very interesting.

me either - hadn't heard that one before?

do you think this is specific to social sciences?

I think it might be a Soc Sci thing - and it's only happened over the past 10 years or so with more and more people doing PhDs... it makes sense to an extent, so what if you went to the best uni, if you are examined by Dave the binman then is that really a test of your knowledge? Rating a PhD on the quality of the assessment is a pretty good idea - you prove your knowledge to the best in your discipline and that's what you're judged on.

I do see the point - just hadn't heard of it

Also I've never heard of anyone at interview being asked about their examiners - but you may be right, it might become more important as jobs become more competative.

I assume though that it is subserviant to good publications etc

It makes sense of comments I've heard in my dept about choosing examiners.

It might be because your external examiner might sometimes be one of your references... and then of course the more prestige he has the better.

Thanks, that makes sense - so the only way to get ahead if you're at a lowly uni is to prove that your work has been recognised by your peers and experts in your field through publication and references. How much do you have to publish during PhD?

There's a trade-off between quantity and quality i.e. high and low impact journals (although overall impact is not the highest criteria - some relatively low impact journals are very highly esteemed in their specialist fields).

I was advised 2-4 as a base line goal but often people have papers pending, in press etc after submission. If you can get good enough papers - it won't matter where you are.

It depends on what university you are targeting.
I heard that lower tier universities are not so demanding in terms of publication records.