salary for a PhD physicist in tech company

[Suffolk911]

Hi everyone,

Does anyone know what PhD physicists can expect to make these days - I'm thinking of employing someone who gained their PhD at Imperial and who has around 1 years worth of relevant experience. We're an early stage tech company, not an investment bank if that makes any difference ...

Thanks

Suffolk

[72EuropaTC]

Doing what?

What level / job description are you? What responsibilities have you got?

Have a look some salary surveys... itjobswatch.co.uk

[rog007]

1 years experience? Are you taking them on as an apprentice? If so, not much.

I'm being flippant of course. But there is some truth in this. What is the role? Can they do the role? Are their skills scarce? This is what will determine their salary, not the PhD, usually.

[deckster]

Suffolk911 said:

Hi everyone,

Does anyone know what PhD physicists can expect to make these days - I'm thinking of employing someone who gained their PhD at Imperial and who has around 1 years worth of relevant experience. We're an early stage tech company, not an investment bank if that makes any difference ...

I'd pay them exactly the same as I'd pay anybody else in the same role, of course. Naturally I'd need to make sure that they could tie their own shoelaces and carry on a coherent conversation...some of my nearest and dearest friends are top notch particle physicists, but the thought of actually letting them out into the real world scares me rigid.

[Suffolk911]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the replies. The job is a very specialised one requiring fairly unique skills - we provide training. I'm interested in benchmarking against what this kind of person might be able to earn in other jobs with engineering companies or tech start-ups. Has any one got any examples of what they pay people with a Physics PhD with a year or two of experience?

Suffolk

[STW2010]

This really is a 'how long is a piece of string' question.

With 1-2 years as a post-doc they would be earning £31k in academia. If they go to NPL (research institute) from PhD completion, after 1-2 years they would be on £30-35k.

If they went in to sales, they could be on £50k plus (likewise, they could be on £20k).

Where is the job located? How specialised is the role? (if you don't recruit this bloke, are you going to be waiting for a year to find someone else?)

All of my above examples assumes no experience prior to them starting their PhD. One PhD student I knew had 5 years experience as an project engineer in a water company- he started his job straight after PhD completion on £40k plus. You're not only paying for the knowledge they possess, but the skills they have (ability to find and understand information quickly; able to adapt; project planning etc). Some are just better than others too as the projects they do are completely different.

Why not get the ball rolling by asking what salary they were looking for? I would be surprised if they wanted anything less than £26k, but might have a high opinion of themselves and want £40k. It's up to you to negotiate then, but I would say £30k would be reasonable salary

[thepeoplespal]

Not sure if this still holds up, but people with PhDs always seemed to me to get less money than those with similar experience and an MSc. I think it comes down to almost becoming too specialised in their field of expertise. However if they are able to actually communicate effectively with people and are actually able to apply their PhD to the world of work, then they are a very rare beast indeed & a very valuable asset indeed.

Being a startup you can probably pay less within reason and offer a bit of equity, if they are getting enough to do them and have a challenge with a carrot, the challenge might almost be enough.

[a311]

In our organisation a PhD graduate would come in at around 35k, 40k if they had some experience. This is in the NW.