• Question: how much money would an avrage scientits earn in 1 year?

    Asked by liam1997 to Emma, Jen, Joseph, Michael, Mona on 15 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Michael Taggart

      Michael Taggart answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Difficult one to answer as there are all sorts of sciene-related jobs and at different levels. If I think about what happens in a university (although that’s only one area where you can work as a scientist) then some roles you might have in science would be:
      ## working as a technician usually where you help out in many general tasks of running a teaching or research laboratory and this could have a salary range of £12,000-£32,000 (I’m guessing a little bit) from start to the very top.
      ## as an experimental officer where you might be more experienced in some particular skills, or in charge of some specialised equipment that is in demand, and the salaray range might be £18,000-£35,000.
      ## a post-doctoral researcher, someone who has become quite highly qualified (with a PhD) and is taking part in (usually) one very specific project £18,000-£35,000.
      ## then there are lecturers, senior lecturers and professors who are in charge of the teaching of students and running research labs and they have a salary range of ~£30,000 – £54,000.
      At any of these grades though it takes 10-20 years to get to the top range and even then most people won’t get to thos top levels.

    • Photo: Jen Gupta

      Jen Gupta answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      I think Michael’s covered this pretty well. As a PhD student I get money from a funding body so that I can pay for somewhere to live and food etc. I get just over £13,000 a year but I don’t have to pay tax on it. The amount of money that you earn will also depend on what country you’re in. I’ve just seen a post-doctoral job advertised in Portugal that would pay me about the same that I get now and there are post-doc jobs in India where I would be paid less than I get now because it’s so much cheaper to live there.

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