• Question: hello scientists is your pay good?

    Asked by tweedledum to Adam, Joanna, Louise S, Louise W, Marcus on 15 Nov 2012. This question was also asked by chubynuggetpancake, yoloimacoolkid.
    • Photo: Joanna Giles

      Joanna Giles answered on 15 Nov 2012:

      Not brilliant to be honest! It’s not bad though and it’s a really great job – for me it’s more important to do something you enjoy rather than something that pays good. As a scientist you get paid a salary, so no matter how many weekends you need to work or how many early mornings you need to come in because of an experiment – you don’t get any extra money.

      I do think that footballers get way too much money and they should put a lot of it into supporting science (and other charities) so that we can have more scientists working on trying to cure and treat disease though! Surely they don’t really NEED all those millions they get?

    • Photo: Marcus Wilson

      Marcus Wilson answered on 15 Nov 2012:

      not bad, not good, but not bad.

      Im still a student so I don’t pay taxes which definietly helps, but I definietly get paid enough to be comortable living in London.

    • Photo: Louise Walkin

      Louise Walkin answered on 15 Nov 2012:

      Yeah, I think we can live a comfortable live but defintely not an extravagant one. I am also still a student like Marcus but we get paid a salary every month – we have the best of both worlds! I get paid a little more than a typical PhD student beacuse I am sponsored by a company but it doesn’t mean I can afford champagne or anything fancy! The cost of everything seems to be so much more now, that even people who have a nice juicy salary are feeling the pinch when they spend their money!

      I also think that money does seem to be going to the wrong places and although we don’t need to be paid more, more money does need to go into science. Football seems to be a good suggestion of where to take it from!

    • Photo: Louise Stanley

      Louise Stanley answered on 15 Nov 2012:

      I don’t think that you go into Science for the money but I personally don’t think the money is bad (although I have done more training than a medical Dr and earn less….). But I do earn enough money to own a nice house and go on holidays when I want to. It can take a while to get to a decent wage but in the recent years salaries have improved a lot in science, even compared to 10 years ago. The main career wage in the NHS for a clinical scientist is ~£30,000 up to ~£40,000. Plus I only have to work 7.5 hours a day and only rarely have to go in at weekends :-). Plus the more senior you are with more resposibility it is possible to move up the career grade and earn more. In Universities, if you are really good and become a Professor it is possible to earn up to ~£80-100,000 as the universities will fight over you! Although most people will not earn this much…. You are unlikely to be a millionaire though, unlike a professional footballer! Although the saying the more money you have the more you spend is true!!!

    • Photo: Adam Paige

      Adam Paige answered on 19 Nov 2012:

      If you work as a technician in a university of government/charity research lab the pay would be poor. If you do a PhD, a postodoctoral job and then become a group leader or lecturer (running your own research team) the pay is OK. Much better than most jobs, but considerably worse than jobs like accounting, engineering, law, medicine or pharmacy which require similar numbers of years training. No-one goes into science for the money (although some people do find very well paid jobs). You have to love the work to follow this career. For most scientists, there just isn’t another job we want to do.

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