• Question: how much do you get paid?

    Asked by sjw12345678910111213141516171819202122232425 to Christine, Edd, Jess, Nicolas, Zara on 12 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by willtidy, willsmithy, berrylover22, bilal11.
    • Photo: Edward Codling

      Edward Codling answered on 10 Jun 2011:

      I’m not saying! 😛

      However, all University lecturers are on a national pay scale that you can see here:
      http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=2210

      A starting Lecturer would get about £25-30k, while a Senior Lecturer would usually be on about £40-50k. However, before you could get a Lecturer position you would have to spend many years training by doing a PhD and then other junior ‘postdoctoral’ scientist positions.

    • Photo: Jessica Chu

      Jessica Chu answered on 11 Jun 2011:

      Hi,

      nice username sjw12345678910111213141516171819202122232425!

      As a PhD student, I am funded by the University Research Scheme and friends of mine that are on the same course but they are sponsored by Astra Zeneca (a big pharmaceutical company) and we roughly get between 13K – 18K a year to cover living cost while we are learning and doing research for them 🙂
      Hopefully we will be on a higher salary after we finish our PhDs!! 🙂

      Just to give you an example of people who is on the other end to me e.g. people who have made a really successful drug or invention- they will be earning loads more…..

      There is a Professor called Malcom Stevens, who is retired now but a while ago, his research group have made a drug called Temozolomide which is very effective to treat certain types of brain cancers. In 2009, the sales of temozolomide reached 1 billion US dollars!!!!!! and Prof. Stevens will get a share of the profit!!
      I hear that nowadays he spends most of his time on his yacht traveling around the world with his wife 🙂

    • Photo: Zara Gladman

      Zara Gladman answered on 11 Jun 2011:

      Nice username 😉 I’m still technically a student (a PhD student) so I don’t get a proper salary – instead, I get a ‘stipend’ which for PhD students is usually around £11-15k a year (tax free!). I get about £12k, which is more than enough to cover my rent, bills, go on holiday and live very comfortably!

      I also make a bit of extra money by teaching students in biology labs (£10 an hour).

    • Photo: Nicolas Biber

      Nicolas Biber answered on 12 Jun 2011:

      I am also a PhD student, and I am a self-funded PhD student which means that in theory rather than getting paid I pay for doing my work (how weird is that!). However, I receive grants from a number of what we call third-party funders. After I knock my university fees off what I receive I have about about £ 700 left per month.
      I am also anticipating that I will earn a little more once I have my degree 🙂 … but as long as it is enough for me to live, it’s not very important for me how much money I earn. I’d chose a job that makes me happy and is useful to everyone above a job that earns me a lot of money.

    • Photo: Christine Switzer

      Christine Switzer answered on 12 Jun 2011:

      My answer starts the same as Edd’s. In part, it is because I am not sure. The basic figures for lecturers are published. Scientists and engineers at the same stage in their career as me make more in the private sector, but perhaps they have a bit less freedom in their roles.

      Recently, some of my students just got their first jobs out of university. The engineers are making £20-45k per year depending on where they are going and what work they want to do. Those who are picking up and moving for their jobs (like doing offshore work or moving somewhere like Australia) skew toward the higher end of that range.

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