life sciences grad into banking/finance career?

You can go into investment banking with a degree in classics if you wanted to, so that area won't matter. Ditto for stuff like accounting. For more mathematical areas like I think risk, or actuarial science, you might be preferred to have a "numerate" degree e.g. maths, physics, engineering, CS, maybe economics. For quant finance you would normally need at least a masters if not a PhD in a highly numerate subject like maths or CS, ideally with a good deal of computational/programming work.

Do you have a particular aspect of finance that interests you?

depends on what area of finance you want to go into, investment banking don't care about the degree at all as long as its from a target university but quant finance will require a maths/physics degree normally.

Firstly, thank you for your reply. What is the best way to get some experience in investment banking? Also once a person gets some experience in there, will they be able to transfer those skills to a more quant field?

I'm not too familiar with that pathway, but I believe there are qualifications such as CISI, CFA and Chartered Wealth management qualification. I'm only mainly familiar with CFA, which is something you require a degree for, but it can be in any subject. It's more to prove you have the ability to tackle the qualification.

Check out this article and check out the qualifications:

https://citywire.co.uk/wealth-manager/news/qualifications-that-will-earn-wealth-managers-big-bucks/a1226879

Also, check out this as I believe asset- and wealth- management are different.

https://smartasset.com/financial-advisor/asset-management-vs-wealth-management#:~:text=While%20asset%20management%20is%20focused,protected%20over%20the%20long%20run.

for reference these don't really help in investment banking/AM recruiting if you have 0 prior work experience/aren't applying through pipelines. Can't speak for wealth management and its entire possible you gotta do them at some point in your career but for recruiting they're unnecessary.

True, but if they research the different qualifications, it will also provide an outlook on what is involved and lead to reading articles that give more advice on the subject, etc. It's like CIMA and ACCA: you need to have been working in finance a while and advanced, to land positions these qualifications are for. But it doesn't hurt researching them to have an idea of what pathway you may go down in the future and to provide knowledge for when that happens. You then have a good idea of how you intend to progress over the next few years and which opportunities to take and which not to. I didn't have this knowledge and took a job at the council, then realised that they push you down the CIPFA pathway. If I hadn't have researched the qualifications I was hoping to take in the future, I would have had no idea and ended up continuing at the council and the experience I gained would have been totally different to what was required. But I researched shortly after and was early enough in my career I could correct the pathway and I switched to an Assistant Accountant at an actual company, rather than the public sector. Mind, I've given that up to study Physics and Astrophysics now, so didn't matter in the end, haha

Oh yeah, you are definitely right regarding experience. I was lucky in finance as I started on a finance traineeship, then progressed to finance assistant after a year, before I even started my AAT Level 2. I was in the right place at the right time with the traineeship, and in the second job, I was given a chance as I was still under-experienced and under-qualified. Sometimes, you just have to thank life for small mercies and to act upon opportunities when they present themselves.

^ this is like 70% of finance recruiting and p insightful actually - thanks