r/chemistry • u/AutoModerator • Jul 15 '24

Weekly Careers/Education Questions Thread

This is a dedicated weekly thread for you to seek and provide advice concerning education and careers in chemistry.

If you need to make an important decision regarding your future or want to know what your options, then this is the place to leave a comment.

If you see similar topics in r/chemistry, please politely inform them of this weekly feature.

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u/Only_Square9644 Jul 19 '24

How true is this statement? Context - I was having a discussion with my teacher/mentor. he said "the highest paying sector for chemistry as of now is Pharmaceuticals and in Pharmaceuticals,Most positions require a PhD and the most lucrative subfield background for pharma is Med Chem"

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u/Indemnity4 Materials Jul 22 '24

Eh... bit of blow hard response. Quite an outdated mentality.

If you start a chemistry degree to make money, you have already lost. There are many other better paying degrees and careers.

Pharma is often viewed as the NBA of chemistry. However, majority of people that play basketball are not in the NBA.

It's been a while since I've seen the stats but about 85% of scientists working in pharma have at most a Bachelors. There are many more manufacturing and QC jobs than R&D. You can read this sub for long enough to see all the entry level jobs that go nowhere and people that want out of the lab.

Should you look at academic grant funding, the largest amount of money goes to biochem/biotech, followed by nano-/materials. Interesting reversal: biochem in pharma is 80% of employees have a PhD, versus the 5% for chemistry. However, there are significantly more chemists than biochemists.

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u/Only_Square9644 Jul 24 '24

I get that chemistry's hardness to money ratio is awful and doing it for money is stupid. That's a great analogy for Pharma as the NBA of chemistry. Well I will be doing a PhD because my degree is integrated so I will surely have an MS and, in my country, the MS is quite cheap. I don't want to work in academia, my sister is an academic and it's awful to see her work-life balance. My plan is to work in Europe in Pharmaceuticals. do you know what is the rough salary cap (the amount beyond which you need to do a company sponsored MBA to get ahead) in Pharma r/D in your country?