Staring Salaries, research jobs.

[Pentoman]

I have a friend that finished at Bristol university at the same time as me. I did an IT masters, friend did Zoology (which is about what animals do and stuff). Friend took a few gap years and just completed a phD on the topic of the migration of birds, or something similar. I went into industry and it's now been 6 1/2 years since I started there, now in my second organisation.

This is what gets me: Friend is complaining that all the research jobs she is looking at applying to are really low paid. I assume she means 16K a year. No, they are paying 'only' 28-31K STARTING SALARY! I couldn't believe my ears. I was sitting there, in the 'high paid' world of IT, with all that experience, and I'm earning 27.5k per year, listening to someone that has no experience and is going to do something that she actually gives a st about, complaining that this figure is too low. Not only that, it also seems that research jobs get long holidays alongside university/school holidays (can anyone confirm if that is true?).

So, friend thought that having a phD means walking into a high paid job despite animal research hardly being a strong sector of the economy. Livid, I was. I learnt to be happy and not complain about 'only' earning the average salary. I thought I was lucky to have anything. But now I don't think I'll bother making the effort.

[STW2010]

That salary bracket applies to post-doctoral roles in academia. This is pretty much standard across the board, and is often where the better paid jobs are for those freshly completed PhDs. I have seen others finish their PhD, having had 3-4 years industrial experience beforehand, and go in to jobs on £40k+, however these were engineering/consulting jobs.

Whilst that is a good starting salary, and your friend should stop moaning, academia starts off well, but soon falls behind the private sector. So what I mean is that after 5 years of post-doctoral experience, in general, the higher salaries exist away from academia. This is, however, dependent on the person and less dependent on the qualification (though this helps).

[STW2010]

Pentoman said:

Not only that, it also seems that research jobs get long holidays alongside university/school holidays (can anyone confirm if that is true?).

No, this is not true. Universities do not have school holidays, we are here all year round- it's the lazy students that aren't .

I work in academia, and get 27 days holiday per year, plus closure days (5-6 days over Christmas) and bank holidays. I know this is very good, but it's not even in the same league as school teachers (who actually work through the holidays too- I married one).

[otolith]

My PhD is in the biological sciences. I took a job as a junior software developer while I finished writing up my PhD. By the time it was awarded, I would have had to take a big pay cut to work in research, and would never have maintained the trajectory of pay available in IT.

[jr502]

Also, depending on the area of research jobs can be very few and far between. It's not nice doing worldwide job searches and getting 1-3 hits. Even then, they would be 1-2 year contracts, so you have to go through relocating far too often.

[Use Psychology]

in com parison to similarly qualified professions, e.g. doctors, lawyers, etc. etc., they are poorly paid.

[BJG1]

You seem to think you have more experience than her. You don't. She's spent a long time in Academia to become suited to a role as a researcher.