Pharmacy degree
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If you search for Pharmacist vacancies here you will see that the average advertised salary is £50,000+ - https://www.jobs.nhs.uk/
Original post by mrlittlebigman
This is true, I have had 2 potential gardeners this Spring that wanted £20/hour!
Feel free to retrain as a gardener or plumber.
Original post by Claremont4ever
Feel free to retrain as a gardener or plumber.
Self-employed manual labour, no job security, and many business expenses to pay out of that hourly fee.
Two thirds of pharmacy graduates work outside of the NHS in retail pharmacy.
Aston university website quotes c.£32k as the average salary 5 years after graduation under the 'Rankings' section:-
Graduate earnings: Aston’s Pharmacy graduates earn an average of £32,800 five years after graduating, which is £2,800 (8%) more than the sector average (Longitudinal Education Outcomes, 2021).
I was earning £30k in 2000. This example shows how pharmacy pay has stagnated. (and could possibly explain why 60% (18/30) of pharmacy schools were in clearing last summer.)
Aston university website quotes c.£32k as the average salary 5 years after graduation under the 'Rankings' section:-
Graduate earnings: Aston’s Pharmacy graduates earn an average of £32,800 five years after graduating, which is £2,800 (8%) more than the sector average (Longitudinal Education Outcomes, 2021).
I was earning £30k in 2000. This example shows how pharmacy pay has stagnated. (and could possibly explain why 60% (18/30) of pharmacy schools were in clearing last summer.)
Original post by ashvinsingh
Would that user be Claremont 
I couldn't possibly comment!
All I will say is, there is little point keep rolling out a list of doctor's earnings when the discussion is about pharmacists. (If you want those, then go and be a doctor!)
Original post by quasa
Security guards
True, plus when I was working in security, my observation was they did a lot less than a pharmacist! Some of the patrollers seemed to manage to go entire shifts without doing one iota of actual work, assuming you don't consider watching netflix on their tablet "work"
You deserve it!
My ex-partner is also a consultant, and he gave his 20s and 30s to medicine.
I remember on my work experience on the wards in the late 80s (I originally wanted to be a GP), a very nice, friendly nurse gave me some very good advice, and that was don't do medicine unless you are prepared to spend 2 decades of your life with your head in a book (no internet back then!) and medicine becomes your life, not just a job.
I'm not sure how much you would agree with that these days, !?
My ex-partner is also a consultant, and he gave his 20s and 30s to medicine.
I remember on my work experience on the wards in the late 80s (I originally wanted to be a GP), a very nice, friendly nurse gave me some very good advice, and that was don't do medicine unless you are prepared to spend 2 decades of your life with your head in a book (no internet back then!) and medicine becomes your life, not just a job.
I'm not sure how much you would agree with that these days, !?
They are official figures which is why I quoted them. I cannot confirm or deny the figures you mention as they are your personal figures, the ones I mentioned are direct from the NHS. A locum pharmacist who averages £40-£50/hour working 5 days a week effectively makes more than £100,000/year which is a consultant doctor wage. A locum pharmacist who achieves this figure in less than 4 years after qualifying is better a consultant who has to invest over a decade post-qualification to earn it.
https://www.bma.org.uk/pay-and-contracts/pay/junior-doctors-pay-scales/pay-scales-for-junior-doctors-in-england
Foundation doctors and special registrars (including GP trainees)
Grade Nodal point Value £
FY1 1 29,384
FY2 2 34,012
CT1-CT2 3 40,257
CT3 4 51,017
ST1-2 3 40,257
ST3-5 4 51,017
ST6-8 5 58,398
Foundation doctors and special registrars (including GP trainees)
Grade Nodal point Value £
FY1 1 29,384
FY2 2 34,012
CT1-CT2 3 40,257
CT3 4 51,017
ST1-2 3 40,257
ST3-5 4 51,017
ST6-8 5 58,398
People are adding non-contractual supplements to 'pad up' their pay.
The days of community pharmacists earning £22/hour are long gone. I'm yet to meet anyone who gets out of bed for less than £40. I crawled out of bed today for £45, I normally wouldn't do a Saturday for less than £50.
Im going to have to disagree with Claremont, community pharmacy jobs tend to range from £22-26 locum recently has been around £30 maybe £35 and PCN/GP being around £28-30 (clinical pharmacists)
Original post by Claremont4ever
People are adding non-contractual supplements to 'pad up' their pay.
The days of community pharmacists earning £22/hour are long gone. I'm yet to meet anyone who gets out of bed for less than £40. I crawled out of bed today for £45, I normally wouldn't do a Saturday for less than £50.
People are adding non-contractual supplements to 'pad up' their pay.
The days of community pharmacists earning £22/hour are long gone. I'm yet to meet anyone who gets out of bed for less than £40. I crawled out of bed today for £45, I normally wouldn't do a Saturday for less than £50.
I worked in a pharmacy and all the non locum pharmacists earned significantly less than £40 ph
(edited 1 year ago)
Original post by Claremont4ever
People are adding non-contractual supplements to 'pad up' their pay.
The days of community pharmacists earning £22/hour are long gone. I'm yet to meet anyone who gets out of bed for less than £40. I crawled out of bed today for £45, I normally wouldn't do a Saturday for less than £50.
People are adding non-contractual supplements to 'pad up' their pay.
The days of community pharmacists earning £22/hour are long gone. I'm yet to meet anyone who gets out of bed for less than £40. I crawled out of bed today for £45, I normally wouldn't do a Saturday for less than £50.
These figures are very misleading.
Yes, in the North East there are currently some very high locum rates for various reasons. These are very much out of step with most of the country. Extrapolating the figures from one region at one particular time to paint a national picture is not helpful. Claremont should know and acknowledge this.
£40-£50 (plus) is currently being offered BUT typically by pharmacies that are struggling to recruit and retain pharmacists. There are several pharmacies I know in my area of the NE that are frankly hellholes to work in. The odd locum shift in one is manageable but as a permanent employee absolutely not. The workload, stress and appalling general working conditions make them no go areas for any pharmacist seeking permanent employment.
I would say that currently in my area the average employee community pharmacist salary (standard week) is in the £43-49K band. With the current pharmacy funding model, I can’t see these figures rising much over the next few years. As I have stated before, there is no career structure in community pharmacy. Those figures may be as good as it gets.
Locum rates have always been higher to reflect the nature of the job…No paid holidays, No sick pay or pension and lack of job security. The current local shortage in the NE results in high pay rates but that can easily swing the other way. Who knows.
You raise a good point, Sarah.
It is very important to mention the regional differences.
Otherwise if I was a 6th former looking on here, I would think......'Ooooh 40 quid an hour, great, I'll do pharmacy!'
Then 6 yrs later end up in a city area that is saturated and be earning £22/hr.
One only has to look on some locum agency websites to see the large hourly rates are usually for the multiples, supermarket hours like 4pm til 11pm, shops out in the middle of nowhere, hell-hole pharmacies that no one in their right mind would take on as a manager, and very short notice like illness to cover. And I'm talking about city and town here, not rural or hard to recruit areas, where you and the other poster reside.
You are right about locum rates, they could swing the other way, this happened in the early 2000s with Lloyds, who were paying a lot of locums, high rate, petrol mileage money Plus travel time too!! But there was work behind the scenes, and they brought over a load of EU pharmacists, there were quite a lot from the Med, like Spain and Greece. And then locum rates started to come down.
Superdrug did something similar in the late 90s/early 2000s too, to cover the many independents who sold up to them in the South-west of the UK, but they brought over a lot of Australian pharmacists.
This is obviously why the 'BigBoys' have gone to the government wailing of a shortage of pharmacists, when all locums know there isn't one, apart from the usual areas. This then has enabled pharmacy to get onto the 'shortage' list, and I'm sure as I type, visas are being organised for pharmacists to come here from Eastern Europe and South Asia. (I remember watching a video several years ago, that was made by Boots, and it was all in Polish, showing scenes of a bright, clean pharmacy, tidy dispensary with actual dispensers in it, and counter staff; I then felt sorry for whoever saw this and ended up in a 3 year contract out in the stix!)
Obviously we would all like higher rates, but with our flat funding package until 2024, I agree with you that higher, regular rates are unlikely right now. We had our chance with MURs (medicines use reviews), and blew it by making them a cash-cow instead of a clinical service based on need, not that the area manager, (previously from a mobile phone shop!) says we Must do 3 every day!
We have been given the hypertension finding service as a consolation prize, but from experience it is already being abused. One store I worked in had the apprentice on the counter trained to ask every adult if they wanted their BP taken. Obviously as a business you need income, but I feel slightly uneasy in situations like I just described that we are pushing too far.
I think the above scenario explains why many newly qualified pharmacists who have minimal experience in retail pharmacy really struggle, and end up in a battle with the non-pharmacist store manager, and the area manager over getting a balance between gaining income and providing a clinical service as specified.
It is very important to mention the regional differences.
Otherwise if I was a 6th former looking on here, I would think......'Ooooh 40 quid an hour, great, I'll do pharmacy!'
Then 6 yrs later end up in a city area that is saturated and be earning £22/hr.
One only has to look on some locum agency websites to see the large hourly rates are usually for the multiples, supermarket hours like 4pm til 11pm, shops out in the middle of nowhere, hell-hole pharmacies that no one in their right mind would take on as a manager, and very short notice like illness to cover. And I'm talking about city and town here, not rural or hard to recruit areas, where you and the other poster reside.
You are right about locum rates, they could swing the other way, this happened in the early 2000s with Lloyds, who were paying a lot of locums, high rate, petrol mileage money Plus travel time too!! But there was work behind the scenes, and they brought over a load of EU pharmacists, there were quite a lot from the Med, like Spain and Greece. And then locum rates started to come down.
Superdrug did something similar in the late 90s/early 2000s too, to cover the many independents who sold up to them in the South-west of the UK, but they brought over a lot of Australian pharmacists.
This is obviously why the 'BigBoys' have gone to the government wailing of a shortage of pharmacists, when all locums know there isn't one, apart from the usual areas. This then has enabled pharmacy to get onto the 'shortage' list, and I'm sure as I type, visas are being organised for pharmacists to come here from Eastern Europe and South Asia. (I remember watching a video several years ago, that was made by Boots, and it was all in Polish, showing scenes of a bright, clean pharmacy, tidy dispensary with actual dispensers in it, and counter staff; I then felt sorry for whoever saw this and ended up in a 3 year contract out in the stix!)
Obviously we would all like higher rates, but with our flat funding package until 2024, I agree with you that higher, regular rates are unlikely right now. We had our chance with MURs (medicines use reviews), and blew it by making them a cash-cow instead of a clinical service based on need, not that the area manager, (previously from a mobile phone shop!) says we Must do 3 every day!
We have been given the hypertension finding service as a consolation prize, but from experience it is already being abused. One store I worked in had the apprentice on the counter trained to ask every adult if they wanted their BP taken. Obviously as a business you need income, but I feel slightly uneasy in situations like I just described that we are pushing too far.
I think the above scenario explains why many newly qualified pharmacists who have minimal experience in retail pharmacy really struggle, and end up in a battle with the non-pharmacist store manager, and the area manager over getting a balance between gaining income and providing a clinical service as specified.
Claremont when faced with truths, rather than considering the opposing view or finding weakness in their own, decides to double down. How can you convince someone their view is irrational when they don't have insight to their own flaws or even be open to the idea.
Anyway,
Real pharmacist figures are posted around here ad nauseam. £40-£50 on the regular is high with the fairies, not something that every pharmacist can expect. For every shift offering £50 there's ten others offering £20.
My brother has almost tripled his salary working as a software engineer simply by switching company. You can only dream of an opportunity like that in Pharmacy. You can see why so many pharmacists are making the quit and leaving the profession behind.
Anyway,
Real pharmacist figures are posted around here ad nauseam. £40-£50 on the regular is high with the fairies, not something that every pharmacist can expect. For every shift offering £50 there's ten others offering £20.
My brother has almost tripled his salary working as a software engineer simply by switching company. You can only dream of an opportunity like that in Pharmacy. You can see why so many pharmacists are making the quit and leaving the profession behind.
More money you make, more tax to Her Majesty. My accountant told me a few weeks ago during self-assessment that I owe HMRC almost £20,000 in tax for the 2021/22 financial year.
You can have a go at how much my total earnings were in order to owe that amount of tax.
You can have a go at how much my total earnings were in order to owe that amount of tax.
Original post by Claremont4ever
More money you make, more tax to Her Majesty. My accountant told me a few weeks ago during self-assessment that I owe HMRC almost £20,000 in tax for the 2021/22 financial year.
You can have a go at how much my total earnings were in order to owe that amount of tax.
You can have a go at how much my total earnings were in order to owe that amount of tax.
80k?
Original post by ChillBear
Claremont when faced with truths, rather than considering the opposing view or finding weakness in their own, decides to double down. How can you convince someone their view is irrational when they don't have insight to their own flaws or even be open to the idea.
Anyway,
Real pharmacist figures are posted around here ad nauseam. £40-£50 on the regular is high with the fairies, not something that every pharmacist can expect. For every shift offering £50 there's ten others offering £20.
My brother has almost tripled his salary working as a software engineer simply by switching company. You can only dream of an opportunity like that in Pharmacy. You can see why so many pharmacists are making the quit and leaving the profession behind.
Anyway,
Real pharmacist figures are posted around here ad nauseam. £40-£50 on the regular is high with the fairies, not something that every pharmacist can expect. For every shift offering £50 there's ten others offering £20.
My brother has almost tripled his salary working as a software engineer simply by switching company. You can only dream of an opportunity like that in Pharmacy. You can see why so many pharmacists are making the quit and leaving the profession behind.
My first emphasis in bold:-
This is true here, and true practically every day of our lives at work with some of the people we have to deal with!!
Second bold : If I were under say 35, rather than the 'wrong(!)' side of 50, I would certainly be exploring other options.
And I think as so many people are getting degrees now, you really need a post-grad diploma or a Masters (and I mean a proper one, the MPharm is an under-grad 'masters' !) to differentiate yourself.
This used to happen with the IP qualification, but now they are going to include that in the degree, so from around 2027 all new pharmacists will be IPs from day 1 on the register.
Although I'm not exactly sure what they will all be doing, as no-one is putting forward any serious country-wide proposals as to what this will mean in practice.
Original post by Claremont4ever
More money you make, more tax to Her Majesty. My accountant told me a few weeks ago during self-assessment that I owe HMRC almost £20,000 in tax for the 2021/22 financial year.
You can have a go at how much my total earnings were in order to owe that amount of tax.
You can have a go at how much my total earnings were in order to owe that amount of tax.
I hope they have set you up a a Limited company, and you pay yourself dividends, if you are pulling in 100k a year. Plus may need to look at VAT too.
I've always been a sole trader, just doing 3 days a week, but I know a lot of high earning locums used to go down the Ltd co. route.
Original post by mrlittlebigman
My first emphasis in bold:-
This is true here, and true practically every day of our lives at work with some of the people we have to deal with!!
Second bold : If I were under say 35, rather than the 'wrong(!)' side of 50, I would certainly be exploring other options.
And I think as so many people are getting degrees now, you really need a post-grad diploma or a Masters (and I mean a proper one, the MPharm is an under-grad 'masters' !) to differentiate yourself.
This used to happen with the IP qualification, but now they are going to include that in the degree, so from around 2027 all new pharmacists will be IPs from day 1 on the register.
Although I'm not exactly sure what they will all be doing, as no-one is putting forward any serious country-wide proposals as to what this will mean in practice.
This is true here, and true practically every day of our lives at work with some of the people we have to deal with!!
Second bold : If I were under say 35, rather than the 'wrong(!)' side of 50, I would certainly be exploring other options.
And I think as so many people are getting degrees now, you really need a post-grad diploma or a Masters (and I mean a proper one, the MPharm is an under-grad 'masters' !) to differentiate yourself.
This used to happen with the IP qualification, but now they are going to include that in the degree, so from around 2027 all new pharmacists will be IPs from day 1 on the register.
Although I'm not exactly sure what they will all be doing, as no-one is putting forward any serious country-wide proposals as to what this will mean in practice.
I have 2 post-graduate degrees, one of which is an MSc. I only work 3 days a week at the moment due to family reasons, my earnings for 2022/2023 should average out at just over £55,000 due to working only 3 days a week now.
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