Pharmacology, pharmaceutical science or biomed?
I am currently in year 12 and i’m really struggling with what degree to do.
My ideal job is to be working in drug discovery and development in a hands on, lab based setting. I would like to be apart of formulating and manufacturing with a pharmaceutical company.
I am currently participating in pathway to bath for pharmacology, pathway to birmingham and UCL for
pharmacy, which will entitle me to reduced guaranteed offers/interviews, aswell as contextuals which I can get.
I am considering the above degrees - I would like to do an integrated masters.
However, I am worried about finding employment afterwards and ending up in a completely unrelated field as I have saw many graduates do so.
While this is my passion, money is a huge part of it for me. I have seen that many of the related jobs are around 30k max salary. I would like to be earning a lot more at the peak of my career - 70k, ideally six figures 😂. I don’t want to be doing 4 years at uni and potentially a phd to be earning 30-40k max.
So I guess my question is, what degree is best to get into the field i want and guarantee me a hefty salary? I know the UK is not the best for science jobs, I will likely move elsewhere after uni. any response appreciated
My ideal job is to be working in drug discovery and development in a hands on, lab based setting. I would like to be apart of formulating and manufacturing with a pharmaceutical company.
I am currently participating in pathway to bath for pharmacology, pathway to birmingham and UCL for
pharmacy, which will entitle me to reduced guaranteed offers/interviews, aswell as contextuals which I can get.
I am considering the above degrees - I would like to do an integrated masters.
However, I am worried about finding employment afterwards and ending up in a completely unrelated field as I have saw many graduates do so.
While this is my passion, money is a huge part of it for me. I have seen that many of the related jobs are around 30k max salary. I would like to be earning a lot more at the peak of my career - 70k, ideally six figures 😂. I don’t want to be doing 4 years at uni and potentially a phd to be earning 30-40k max.
So I guess my question is, what degree is best to get into the field i want and guarantee me a hefty salary? I know the UK is not the best for science jobs, I will likely move elsewhere after uni. any response appreciated
Hii I'm currently an MPharm student at Keele University! The courses you mentioned are all slightly different, so it's important to decide what kind of job you'd like after you graduate. Pharmacy is more clinical, while pharmacology is more-lab based work. Finding pharmacy work isn't difficult, whether it be in the NHS or community pharmacies and you can definitely climb up the NHS pay bands throughout your career to reach a similar salary to what you hope to reach, however it is a stressful work environment and if all you care about it your salary then it might be helpful to reconsider that
Hi, I am a UCL BSc Pharmacology graduate. If you want to get into drug discovery, pharmacology is the right degree for you. Pharmacy is definitely more clinically-focused (you get to do rotations at a pharmacy, take modules that prepare you to communicate with patients), so imo if you're sure you're not going down the pharmacist route and want to instead do drug discovery, pharmacology would be more appropriate. Biomed is a lot more broad and the good side of it is that if you want to research in biosciences but are not sure if you want to work exactly on drug discovery, biomed gives you that freedom to explore in your first year, and you can then specialise into pharmacology (the molecular pharma stream is what they called it at ucl i think?) in your second year, or do other things within the bioscience field if that interests you more. Still, if you are sure you want to do pharma in particular, might be better to specialise in pharmacology from the get-go to avoid doing some modules in biomed that might not be as much of interest to you.
Money-wise, it depends. Your starting salary will defo be in the £25-£35k, even if you do the MSci (integrated masters), so definitely don't expect to be making bank from the start. Big Pharma, and more specifically Big Pharma Management, is where the money is at, for which your Pharmacology degree will definitely be desirable. I do want to warn you though that it is unrealistic to expect to get into Big Pharma straight out of undergrad - the UCL Pharmacology programme was the best in the country when I applied, and still, out of my coursemates, I know just one girl that got to interview for AstraZeneca, and none that actually got offered jobs at BigPharma. Clinical trials money is also not too bad. If you stay in academia though, your cap is defo less than £70k, so if money is important to you, i wouldn't go down that route (as in, I wouldn't stay in academia after getting a PhD).
Money-wise, it depends. Your starting salary will defo be in the £25-£35k, even if you do the MSci (integrated masters), so definitely don't expect to be making bank from the start. Big Pharma, and more specifically Big Pharma Management, is where the money is at, for which your Pharmacology degree will definitely be desirable. I do want to warn you though that it is unrealistic to expect to get into Big Pharma straight out of undergrad - the UCL Pharmacology programme was the best in the country when I applied, and still, out of my coursemates, I know just one girl that got to interview for AstraZeneca, and none that actually got offered jobs at BigPharma. Clinical trials money is also not too bad. If you stay in academia though, your cap is defo less than £70k, so if money is important to you, i wouldn't go down that route (as in, I wouldn't stay in academia after getting a PhD).
Original post by ttdrv
Hi, I am a UCL BSc Pharmacology graduate. If you want to get into drug discovery, pharmacology is the right degree for you. Pharmacy is definitely more clinically-focused (you get to do rotations at a pharmacy, take modules that prepare you to communicate with patients), so imo if you're sure you're not going down the pharmacist route and want to instead do drug discovery, pharmacology would be more appropriate. Biomed is a lot more broad and the good side of it is that if you want to research in biosciences but are not sure if you want to work exactly on drug discovery, biomed gives you that freedom to explore in your first year, and you can then specialise into pharmacology (the molecular pharma stream is what they called it at ucl i think?) in your second year, or do other things within the bioscience field if that interests you more. Still, if you are sure you want to do pharma in particular, might be better to specialise in pharmacology from the get-go to avoid doing some modules in biomed that might not be as much of interest to you.
Money-wise, it depends. Your starting salary will defo be in the £25-£35k, even if you do the MSci (integrated masters), so definitely don't expect to be making bank from the start. Big Pharma, and more specifically Big Pharma Management, is where the money is at, for which your Pharmacology degree will definitely be desirable. I do want to warn you though that it is unrealistic to expect to get into Big Pharma straight out of undergrad - the UCL Pharmacology programme was the best in the country when I applied, and still, out of my coursemates, I know just one girl that got to interview for AstraZeneca, and none that actually got offered jobs at BigPharma. Clinical trials money is also not too bad. If you stay in academia though, your cap is defo less than £70k, so if money is important to you, i wouldn't go down that route (as in, I wouldn't stay in academia after getting a PhD).
Money-wise, it depends. Your starting salary will defo be in the £25-£35k, even if you do the MSci (integrated masters), so definitely don't expect to be making bank from the start. Big Pharma, and more specifically Big Pharma Management, is where the money is at, for which your Pharmacology degree will definitely be desirable. I do want to warn you though that it is unrealistic to expect to get into Big Pharma straight out of undergrad - the UCL Pharmacology programme was the best in the country when I applied, and still, out of my coursemates, I know just one girl that got to interview for AstraZeneca, and none that actually got offered jobs at BigPharma. Clinical trials money is also not too bad. If you stay in academia though, your cap is defo less than £70k, so if money is important to you, i wouldn't go down that route (as in, I wouldn't stay in academia after getting a PhD).
Academia is not for the faint-hearted, but I know a lot of academics earning substantially more than that. 70k is pretty standard senior lecturer (associate professor) pay at UCL
(edited 1 month ago)
Original post by ttdrv
Hi, I am a UCL BSc Pharmacology graduate. If you want to get into drug discovery, pharmacology is the right degree for you. Pharmacy is definitely more clinically-focused (you get to do rotations at a pharmacy, take modules that prepare you to communicate with patients), so imo if you're sure you're not going down the pharmacist route and want to instead do drug discovery, pharmacology would be more appropriate. Biomed is a lot more broad and the good side of it is that if you want to research in biosciences but are not sure if you want to work exactly on drug discovery, biomed gives you that freedom to explore in your first year, and you can then specialise into pharmacology (the molecular pharma stream is what they called it at ucl i think?) in your second year, or do other things within the bioscience field if that interests you more. Still, if you are sure you want to do pharma in particular, might be better to specialise in pharmacology from the get-go to avoid doing some modules in biomed that might not be as much of interest to you.
Money-wise, it depends. Your starting salary will defo be in the £25-£35k, even if you do the MSci (integrated masters), so definitely don't expect to be making bank from the start. Big Pharma, and more specifically Big Pharma Management, is where the money is at, for which your Pharmacology degree will definitely be desirable. I do want to warn you though that it is unrealistic to expect to get into Big Pharma straight out of undergrad - the UCL Pharmacology programme was the best in the country when I applied, and still, out of my coursemates, I know just one girl that got to interview for AstraZeneca, and none that actually got offered jobs at BigPharma. Clinical trials money is also not too bad. If you stay in academia though, your cap is defo less than £70k, so if money is important to you, i wouldn't go down that route (as in, I wouldn't stay in academia after getting a PhD).
Money-wise, it depends. Your starting salary will defo be in the £25-£35k, even if you do the MSci (integrated masters), so definitely don't expect to be making bank from the start. Big Pharma, and more specifically Big Pharma Management, is where the money is at, for which your Pharmacology degree will definitely be desirable. I do want to warn you though that it is unrealistic to expect to get into Big Pharma straight out of undergrad - the UCL Pharmacology programme was the best in the country when I applied, and still, out of my coursemates, I know just one girl that got to interview for AstraZeneca, and none that actually got offered jobs at BigPharma. Clinical trials money is also not too bad. If you stay in academia though, your cap is defo less than £70k, so if money is important to you, i wouldn't go down that route (as in, I wouldn't stay in academia after getting a PhD).
thank you so much!! this has been really helpful. I definitely don’t want to work in academia as I just don’t think it would satisfy me. Could I ask what you are doing now and what you hope to do? Also, Bath offer the MSci with a year in industry, would this be a better option due to the experience?
Original post by ttdrv
Hi, I am a UCL BSc Pharmacology graduate. If you want to get into drug discovery, pharmacology is the right degree for you. Pharmacy is definitely more clinically-focused (you get to do rotations at a pharmacy, take modules that prepare you to communicate with patients), so imo if you're sure you're not going down the pharmacist route and want to instead do drug discovery, pharmacology would be more appropriate. Biomed is a lot more broad and the good side of it is that if you want to research in biosciences but are not sure if you want to work exactly on drug discovery, biomed gives you that freedom to explore in your first year, and you can then specialise into pharmacology (the molecular pharma stream is what they called it at ucl i think?) in your second year, or do other things within the bioscience field if that interests you more. Still, if you are sure you want to do pharma in particular, might be better to specialise in pharmacology from the get-go to avoid doing some modules in biomed that might not be as much of interest to you.
Money-wise, it depends. Your starting salary will defo be in the £25-£35k, even if you do the MSci (integrated masters), so definitely don't expect to be making bank from the start. Big Pharma, and more specifically Big Pharma Management, is where the money is at, for which your Pharmacology degree will definitely be desirable. I do want to warn you though that it is unrealistic to expect to get into Big Pharma straight out of undergrad - the UCL Pharmacology programme was the best in the country when I applied, and still, out of my coursemates, I know just one girl that got to interview for AstraZeneca, and none that actually got offered jobs at BigPharma. Clinical trials money is also not too bad. If you stay in academia though, your cap is defo less than £70k, so if money is important to you, i wouldn't go down that route (as in, I wouldn't stay in academia after getting a PhD).
Money-wise, it depends. Your starting salary will defo be in the £25-£35k, even if you do the MSci (integrated masters), so definitely don't expect to be making bank from the start. Big Pharma, and more specifically Big Pharma Management, is where the money is at, for which your Pharmacology degree will definitely be desirable. I do want to warn you though that it is unrealistic to expect to get into Big Pharma straight out of undergrad - the UCL Pharmacology programme was the best in the country when I applied, and still, out of my coursemates, I know just one girl that got to interview for AstraZeneca, and none that actually got offered jobs at BigPharma. Clinical trials money is also not too bad. If you stay in academia though, your cap is defo less than £70k, so if money is important to you, i wouldn't go down that route (as in, I wouldn't stay in academia after getting a PhD).
and also, how intense was the degree? as in workload-wise and how long were you spending in lectures/labs a weeks
Original post by liliaash
thank you so much!! this has been really helpful. I definitely don’t want to work in academia as I just don’t think it would satisfy me. Could I ask what you are doing now and what you hope to do? Also, Bath offer the MSci with a year in industry, would this be a better option due to the experience?
Yes.
It immediately puts you ahead of all the other freshly minted graduates who have 'no relevant experience'.
Original post by liliaash
and also, how intense was the degree? as in workload-wise and how long were you spending in lectures/labs a weeks
glad it helped! personally, i completely changed trajectories after my bachelor's degree and did a master's in a social science and intend to stay in the field. however, that was just a personal decision and is certainly not common - my coursemates mostly got into healthcare/life science consulting or medical affairs. there are also a couple of them that enjoyed the lab work and so they are looking into phds/lab research positions. a lot of them eventually want to get into big pharma but as i said before, this is almost impossible straight out of uni and is more of a long-term objective.
workload-wise, it was definitely very tough. it's a lot of memorisation but also critical thinking, even from your second year you're already expected to engage with current research relevant to the module and by year 3 we did not have textbooks and were exclusively learning from papers (so like our lecturers' presentations would essentially be taking us through the most relevant literature on the topic), and you're tested on your understanding of those key papers in your exams. so it is tough as you have to stay up to date with what's in the literature but also understand it and bring papers together to build an argument on a given topic, so you can never get away with just memorisation (all exams were essay-based).
in year 2 we had an experimental pharmacology module where you had weekly labs that would sometimes take up to 4hrs (and were mandatory to attend) and each week you had to write a group lab report, analysing the data you collected from the lab. so pretty early on you're exposed to doing your own research and data analysis. in year 3, i conducted my own lab experiment for my diss (as did the majority of us, you could also do a literature review for your diss, but was less common), and that was intense - 2 days of the week both terms i would be in the lab 9 to 6 (and that is just experimenting and collecting data, i'm not even gonna mention how long it took to actually write the dissertation up) and that is on top of intense 3rd year coursework that you have to do for minimum 3 other modules per term. there was variation though and some labs had lighter work than mine, some coursemates collected all of their data in just 1 term for example. so i'd say it is important that you like labs before you get into this degree because you will have a lot of them and it would make you really miserable spending so much time in the lab if it's not your thing. same counts for biomed, also very lab heavy.
Original post by liliaash
thank you so much!! this has been really helpful. I definitely don’t want to work in academia as I just don’t think it would satisfy me. Could I ask what you are doing now and what you hope to do? Also, Bath offer the MSci with a year in industry, would this be a better option due to the experience?
about the year in industry - unless Bath guarantees you a place in industry (i.e. has partnerships with some companies that guarantee that you will have a place), don't bother. if you have to look for a placement on your own, that is incredibly tough (at that point you will be just a second year with no experience), and what happened for most of my mates is they had to switch back to the normal 3-year degree as they couldn't find placements. that being said, of course if you do find a placement it will be a massive advantage and most likely you'll get a return offer for after you graduate, which would be a huge relief. but if i were you, i would check if your ideal companies even offer placements, because not all of them do, and only then would i consider doing the year in industry option.
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