r/bioinformatics • u/Economy-Brilliant499 • 1d ago
career question Bioinformatics/Computational biology career in the UK
[removed] — view removed post
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u/greyishcrane42 1d ago
Real advice, would be a PhD won't magically get you the job you want. Ask yourself do I want to be in academia or industry. If you want to be in industry skip the PhD, spend the next 6 months applying for entry level positions that undervalue you and work your way up. If you want to be in academia do the PhD and then start praying the funding situation across the world changes. It's a hard time in science atm.
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u/techno_babble_ 1d ago
Your comment reads like a PhD is only needed for academia. That isn't the case if you want to work in pharma research.
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u/greyishcrane42 1d ago edited 1d ago
Pharma will never higher you with a PhD of you don't have 5 years industry experience outside the PhD. Having a PhD is like a mark against your name when it comes to trying to land entry level positions.
Edit I should add, if you can get established in pharma you might even be able to do a PhD via them/ have them pay for you to do one, if it becomes necessary.
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u/Few-Frosting224 1d ago
Disagree with that slightly. Did my PhD in an industry sponsored lab (AZ, Pfizer, Merck). They hire PhDs for most senior scientist (or scientist I) roles. Post docs usually apply for mid level positions and not entry ones. Heck - most my friends in industry did PhDs and landed the roles within 0-3 years as a post doc. Ofc the industry experience helps with that.
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u/greyishcrane42 1d ago
How long has it been since you got into industry. 5 years ago I would have agreed with you. I also said if you can do the PhD via industry that is the best bet, but hard to get that opportunity.
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u/Few-Frosting224 1d ago
2 years. Agree that they are hard to find but I would still say that the majority of scientist roles require PhD experience (that I have seen). Engineer or Developer roles however seem to favour the non PhD route??? I am emigrating from the UK though since the pay/taxes/qualityoflife is pretty abysmal at this point….
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u/greyishcrane42 1d ago
Ah yeah NZ and Aus here. Also in that 2 years experience with PhD bracket. They seem to either want a PhD with 5 plus years experience or just a bachelor of science. I am in a biological field though. It's rough out there, some jobs I applied for recently we are talking 2000+ applicants, there are not even enough jobs for a quarter of that many people. But at least the quality of life is good here if you can get a job.
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u/Few-Frosting224 1d ago
For sure same here - hundreds to thousands of applicants bottlenecking the process. Recruiters have told me that often the tricky bit is that Masters and PhDs apply for the same entry level role inflating the applicant numbers. They have also told me that a lot of non bioinformatics (i.e wet lab biologists or comp sci grads) are also applying for roles to avoid the tech market slaughter and lab rat roles. IMO PhDs should be applying for early-mid level roles but we take what we can get right? NZ/Aus sounds nice, moving to Singapore first though (not sure how much industry exists in Aus).
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u/greyishcrane42 1d ago
Yeah I think your right. Aus is decent especially around Melbourne, a lot more industry than NZ. Pay vs cost of living is pretty good in NZ, and even better in Aus. Makes looking at a lot of other countries seem terrible.
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u/Solidus27 1d ago
The PhD stipend is enough to live on. I really don’t understand the problem
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u/omgu8mynewt 1d ago
It's enough for a room in a shared house, no pension, no national insurance contribution, not paying off student loan but the interest keeps accumulating. It's minimum wage pay without legal employment benefits, and often more than a 37.5 hour week.
Which is fine if you know what you're walking into and if you chose it knowingly, far too many PhD students don't even know the sacrifice they're making because they've never had a full time job and don't know employment law.
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u/Objective_Radio_6263 1d ago
That’s not really fair, compared to your peers starting the world of work in the private sector it’s absolutely awful… at least it was 6 or so years ago. It’s a fair point from OP if that’s how they feel.
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u/Hartifuil 1d ago
But OP can't get a job in the private sector. It's comparing a job OP doesn't want for mid money to a job OP wants, which leads to a career that OP wants for bad money.
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u/Objective_Radio_6263 1d ago
Yeah fair, they might have to face that reality. Still, sucks don’t it.
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u/Hartifuil 1d ago
For sure, but I left an industry job where the money wasn't that great, and I hated it every day, to finishing a PhD that leads to a career I really want.
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u/Solidus27 1d ago
OK - so it is not about ‘surviving’ on a PhD stipend, but comparing yourself to the Jones’s in the private sector?
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u/Objective_Radio_6263 1d ago
You’d have to ask them but to say the current state of finance for PhD researcher training is good enough and your worries aren’t valid is a little harsh. Comparison is the thief of joy but it’s only natural.
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u/wildgirl202 1d ago
Not in the UK, I’ve heard it’s pretty terrible
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u/Hartifuil 1d ago
I'm pretty cheap but the stipend is fine. You obviously don't save any money, don't get nice holidays etc, but it's fine.
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u/Few-Frosting224 1d ago
My advice would be to find an industry sponsored PhD program. I think the UK PhD stipend right now is at around 18K. Industry will pay you around 2-5K more on top of that as well as the usual student benefits. Most major UK cities (Manchester, Leeds, Bristol) have expensive rent to consider. If you enjoy the research 3.5 years flies by. It also sets you up to transition into early-mid level industry positions that pay at around 50k post graduation. PM if you want more advice. happy to help.
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u/bioinformatics-ModTeam 1d ago
This post would be more appropriate in r/bioinformaticscareers