Is there any hope for pharmacy students??

Original post by Blue_skies124

So would you recommend avoiding doing pharmacy altogether? I’d love to work in the regulatory environment but I know that’s hard to get into
If I was able to get the grades for medicine, I would have picked that to be honest but then again, the pharmacy course itself is interesting

The course is interesting and varied, yes, it's just the job at the end of it. About 36k a year or £20 an hour as a locum. Not a big return for all the studying you have done

Reply 42

0895

Average salaries for community pharmacists 36k per year

Average locum rate £20 per hour

(edited 2 years ago)

Reply 43

Blue_skies124

17

Original post by 0895

The course is interesting and varied, yes, it's just the job at the end of it. About 36k a year or £20 an hour as a locum. Not a big return for all the studying you have done

I don’t know what to do because I would want a well paid job for the amount of sacrifices my parents have made to support me
But all I hear is how pharmacy is a dying career and the over saturation of pharmacists in the south is what’s causing the decline in pay over there

Reply 44

mrlittlebigman

12

Difficult to say, Blue, I worked for a company that had got 3 robots making up all the media-pouches (like blister pack trays) for old people, and the boss told me that was the future. You even had a robot that you fed the pouch through and it checked them for you and only highlighted if there was a missing tablet or a broken one to replace. So he said that saved him a pharmacist.

Wages have been stuck for ten years in the big cities where there are loads of pharmacists. You could negotiate more if you are willing to go and live in the middle of nowhere, like in Norfolk or Cornwall.
Amazon will be coming in to pharmacy in the 2020s, so who knows what that will bring.

I wouldn't say it is dying, but it is certainly changing, a lot! There are new jobs on PCNs and in GP surgeries if you want to learn to diagnose and prescribe. But I think community will shrink down a bit.

Reply 45

ChillBear

Original post by Blue_skies124

I don’t know what to do because I would want a well paid job for the amount of sacrifices my parents have made to support me
But all I hear is how pharmacy is a dying career and the over saturation of pharmacists in the south is what’s causing the decline in pay over there

Would you consider an alternative career like optometry? It pays much better than pharmacists, with lesser years of training and smaller work days.

Alternatively have a look at last year's GP contract, specifically page 9 which lists maximal pay for HCPs in general practice:

https://www.bma.org.uk/media/2024/gp-contract-agreement-feb-2020.pdf

Have a read of the roles in the latter pages. Do any of those sound interesting to you?

Reply 46

Pharmacy has been in the doldrums for donkeys now, you’d need to be an imbecile not to have heard anything about the dire state of the “Profession”.
There’s quite a bit of talk on here from a few contributors about exorbitant salaries, salaries that are unrealistic for the vast majority of Pharmacists. Of those Pharmacists that are earning them, they’re working all the hours God sends, which truly is a miserable existence in my book. I heard one poster mention 100hours a week...yeah try that long term and you’re Physical AND mental health will invariably break down, that much is GUARANTEED! Besides there is way way more to life than being stuck in a crumby community Pharmacy, my motto has always been about working to live, not the other way about. I’ve never once met a Community Pharmacist who’s been in the game over 10 years who’s actually liked their job, heck anybody who’s been in the job over 5 years! They’re worn down, jaded, disillusioned and demoralised. I’m talking about shop based Pharmacists here...I think perhaps the Pharmacists based in GP practices (like hospital) derive more satisfaction out of the job, but that is increasingly competitive to get into and I’m hearing reports of GP’s lumping more and more work on to the Practice based Pharmacists.
If you work for a Multiple, you’re nothing more than a pawn in their game. They can subject to the most horrendous working conditions, ie little to staff, no breaks, etc and if you make a mistake under those conditions they’ll hang you out to dry and the GPHC will come down on you like a ton of bricks. Let’s be honest, that’s why the Responsible Pharmacist legislation was enacted...it was a piece of legislation at the behest of the Multiples, so that there was no ambiguity around who was accountable in the case of an error...the responsible Pharmacist in charge. So there’s the pressure of the GPHC breathing down your neck together with the fact that “Patients” don’t really respect or value your contribution. I say Patients but I really mean customers, that’s how the Multiples see them. Go for any interview with a Multiple and you’ll be asked questions about the customer not the patient. How to keep the customer happy, how to keep them coming back etc...retail pharmacy isn’t a hair different than any other retail outlet. If you like the thought of working in a shop the rest of your life, by all means go ahead and study Pharmacy...because that’s most likely where you’ll end up!

Reply 47

Claremont4ever

Foundation doctors
Grade Stage of training Nodal point Value £
Foundation doctor year 1 FY1 1 28,808
Foundation doctor year 2 FY2 2 33,345

Comunity Pharmacist salary on day 1 of qualification
North East - >£50,000
South (icluding London) - >£38.000

Reply 48

38 grand for living in London with its expense? I would doubt newly qualified are on 50 plus grand in the North east and even if they were, most wouldn’t be willing to relocate up there as it’s as rough as bag of nails. Also when saturation happens, which it inevitably will, salaries will fall off a cliff..and you’ll be undercutting people to secure work, like everybody else. The laws of supply and demand are paramount, you’re not immune to them.

I’ll guarantee you you’ll not be in love with the job 10 years from now.

Reply 49

04MR17

Volunteer Section Leader

22

Original post by Claremont4ever

Foundation doctors
Grade Stage of training Nodal point Value £
Foundation doctor year 1 FY1 1 28,808
Foundation doctor year 2 FY2 2 33,345

Comunity Pharmacist salary on day 1 of qualification
North East - >£50,000
South (icluding London) - >£38.000

Could you provide a link for these figures?

Reply 50

Claremont4ever

https://www.bma.org.uk/pay-and-contracts/pay/junior-doctors-pay-scales/pay-scales-for-junior-doctors-in-england

https://uk.indeed.com/jobs?q=Pharmacist+%C2%A350,000&l=England

https://www.chemistanddruggistjobs.co.uk/jobs/community-pharmacist/-50-000-59-999/

Original post by 04MR17

Could you provide a link for these figures?

(edited 2 years ago)

Reply 51

ChillBear

https://www.bma.org.uk/pay-and-contracts/pay/junior-doctors-pay-scales/pay-scales-for-junior-doctors-in-england

https://uk.indeed.com/jobs?q=Pharmacist+%C2%A350,000&l=England

https://www.chemistanddruggistjobs.co.uk/jobs/community-pharmacist/-50-000-59-999/

community pharmacist day 1 of qualification: £40k
community pharmacist year 30 of qualification: £40k

Reply 52

04MR17

Volunteer Section Leader

22

Original post by Claremont4ever

I thought you said 50k on day 1 of qualification?

On your indeed link I looked at the top 3 results, 1 required experience leading a team of pharmacists, 1 explicitly stated they would reject anybody with less than a year's experience, a third said the ideal candidate would have experience in leadership.

So I'm a little confused about whether £50k is a typical salary for an experienced pharmacist or someone just qualified?

Furthermore, your last link has many vacancies listed above 50k. However, many of these positions are for "Pharmacy Manager". Is it normal to be made a manager on day 1 of qualification?

(edited 2 years ago)

Reply 53

Oxedrin

5

Very interesting facts and figures. Let’s look at them one by one.

1. You are entirely right that the basic pay for FY1 doctors on day 1 is around £28,000 but you have conveniently left out the fact this figure is basic pay and does not include doctors’ weekend, night, and long day pay which mean the average FY1 take home will be near £40k/yr. In addition to this, doctor’s pay will rise every year until they reach consultant level where pay conparison with their counterparts in pharmacy who have worked for >10 years would not be justified at all.

2. There are nearly 8,000 medical graduates every year all with guaranteed jobs and pay scale which I have discussed in point 1. If we compare the nearly 3000 new pharmacy graduates with their medical counterparts, pharmacy graduates come out of uni with no guaranteed jobs, most of them end up locuming for big multiples with profit plastered all over the place and patient safety considered a nuisance. This means horrendous working conditions with significant risk and pay that does not reflect the risks.
3. This point is very interesting because pharmacists or other health professions don’t go looking for jobs on Indeed. As you and I know, specalist locuming agencies or big pharmacy comporate websites is the place these people go looking for a professional role. Since Covid, it’s true the locum rates have gone up but the reality is with this vaccine roll out. However, before Covid, the average pay was £18-£21. And I emphasise the word average or lets say if we plotted the average locum rate on a normal curve, the true figure would be the near figure I’d stated above.

I do like individuals winning, succeeding, earning loads of money, but it’s also right prospective students receive accurate and unblemished information so that they can make their own minds.

(edited 2 years ago)

Reply 54

The vast majority of degrees are a waste of time and money, and teach you nothing about real life. It’s only the wisdom that comes with advancing age that shows you this. You could set up a dog grooming business or massage therapy business from home and earn a fortune from it, with very little training & start up costs. In short, most degrees are a really *****y investment. The most successful ones I see in my age bracket (late thirties) are the ones who didn’t go to University! Food for thought.

Reply 55

Sarah H.

Original post by ChillBear

community pharmacist day 1 of qualification: £40k
community pharmacist year 30 of qualification: £40k

Absolutely correct. Community Pharmacy has no career structure and offers the probability that a pharmacist will finish more or less where they started.

(edited 2 years ago)

Reply 56

lara147

16

Original post by Claremont4ever

Foundation doctors
Grade Stage of training Nodal point Value £
Foundation doctor year 1 FY1 1 28,808
Foundation doctor year 2 FY2 2 33,345

Comunity Pharmacist salary on day 1 of qualification
North East - >£50,000
South (icluding London) - >£38.000

The foundation doctors one is a little misleading, that’s the base pay and not the take home. The figures you have stated is the minimum amount of money a junior doctor will earn which isn’t counting additional hours, nights and on call which every doctor will have to do

Reply 57

The manual trades like Plumbing, Heating Engineer, Electrician etc are very hard to beat. Guys earning a fortune from them and not a fraction the stress Pharmacy has. But then again, Plumbing doesn’t have the “glamour” of Pharmacy....I don’t think Plumbing or the trades were ever made out to be glamorous in the first place. The difference is careers like Pharmacy, Medicine, dentistry were always put on pedestal as being glamorous when in reality they’re nothing but hard slogs. It was mostly Careers teachers & University lecturers who waxed lyrical about these careers. Ask a GP who’s been at the coalface for 20 years if it’s a glamorous job, he’d soon tell you to piss right off. Either that or foot up the arse as they say in NI. 😂🤣

Reply 58

Sarah H.

Original post by Hoganballs

Pharmacy has been in the doldrums for donkeys now, you’d need to be an imbecile not to have heard anything about the dire state of the “Profession”.
There’s quite a bit of talk on here from a few contributors about exorbitant salaries, salaries that are unrealistic for the vast majority of Pharmacists. Of those Pharmacists that are earning them, they’re working all the hours God sends, which truly is a miserable existence in my book. I heard one poster mention 100hours a week...yeah try that long term and you’re Physical AND mental health will invariably break down, that much is GUARANTEED! Besides there is way way more to life than being stuck in a crumby community Pharmacy, my motto has always been about working to live, not the other way about. I’ve never once met a Community Pharmacist who’s been in the game over 10 years who’s actually liked their job, heck anybody who’s been in the job over 5 years! They’re worn down, jaded, disillusioned and demoralised. I’m talking about shop based Pharmacists here...I think perhaps the Pharmacists based in GP practices (like hospital) derive more satisfaction out of the job, but that is increasingly competitive to get into and I’m hearing reports of GP’s lumping more and more work on to the Practice based Pharmacists.
If you work for a Multiple, you’re nothing more than a pawn in their game. They can subject to the most horrendous working conditions, ie little to staff, no breaks, etc and if you make a mistake under those conditions they’ll hang you out to dry and the GPHC will come down on you like a ton of bricks. Let’s be honest, that’s why the Responsible Pharmacist legislation was enacted...it was a piece of legislation at the behest of the Multiples, so that there was no ambiguity around who was accountable in the case of an error...the responsible Pharmacist in charge. So there’s the pressure of the GPHC breathing down your neck together with the fact that “Patients” don’t really respect or value your contribution. I say Patients but I really mean customers, that’s how the Multiples see them. Go for any interview with a Multiple and you’ll be asked questions about the customer not the patient. How to keep the customer happy, how to keep them coming back etc...retail pharmacy isn’t a hair different than any other retail outlet. If you like the thought of working in a shop the rest of your life, by all means go ahead and study Pharmacy...because that’s most likely where you’ll end up!

Great post Hoganballs,

I am coming to an end of a lifetime in Community Pharmacy in the NE in a few months.

Could I advise potential pharmacy students to think very, very carefully before committing. I have seen the direction of travel for CP over several decades. Every decade the situation for individual pharmacists has got worse. I see no reason for that to change…there is a momentum.

Don’t be seduced by totally unrealistic claims of high salaries. So many Community Pharmacies, especially those run by the large foreign owned multiples, are little more than sweat shops. It is a commercial not a clinical environment where the pharmacist is judged solely by their revenue they generate for the shareholders. The pay rarely compensates for the conditions you will have to work under. It absolutely is not worth it. A few years of this working life and I pretty much guarantee you will regret your decision and want out. I have seen so many leave CP for other fields over the years.

As an aside the NE is not that bad a place to live. There are some very attractive locations not far outside the conurbations. Very attractive countryside and coastlines are nearby. Cheapish housing. I would say however that many pharmacies (especially those advertising higher salaries) are in the 3 major conurbations and can be really grim places to work.

Good luck.

Reply 59

Claremont4ever