University of St Andrews

Part-time work at St. Andrews, Scotland

If I am a first-year student at the University of St. Andrews, how much cash could I potentially make on the sidefrom a part-time job that I can work while studying?

Reply 1

Calum Muir

This very much depends on your personal ability to juggle a job and your course/social life at the same time. When I started at St Andrews I had already been living and working in the town for 6 months and while I did go down hours, for the first few months I was still doing around 15 hours + a week. It was pretty overwhelming and I didn't have a single day off that wasn't spent in the library. To be honest I probably wouldn't recommend working at all in first-year, but obviously you might be in a the situation where you need to. Either way, if you can help it I wouldn't recommend doing more than 10 hours spread over 2 days, unless you love to work/are happy doing bar shifts.

In all likelihood you're under 21 which means you might be paid a lower minimum wage, but there are some good employers in town that pay the same rate regardless. So doing 10 hours a week on 18-20 minimum wage (£6.45) you'll earn £64.5 per week week, for 21-24 minimum wage (£8.20) you'll earn £82.0 per week. Your yearly income at this level should be bellow the minimum tax threshold, but its likely you will lose a couple £'s a week to national insurance and a workplace pension.

Its also important to remember that Covid-19 is putting an awful lot of stress on local businesses, with several laying off employees, so its possible that the job market is going to be very competitive next semester. Just things to be aware of.