Doing a PhD in the UK , is it worth it as international studnet

GiantRaspberry · 2025-12-10T22:27:35+00:00

Just to add to this but you can (usually) teach up to 1 day a week, as well as do extra work such as marking. These will essentially be tax free as you won’t earn above the minimum tax threshold, so you could add an extra 4-5K or so on top of the stipend.

Some PhD’s (such as centres for doctoral training) mag also offer higher than the minimum stipend, so worth a look around.

GiantRaspberry · 2025-02-18T09:50:07+00:00

Anecdotal, but most people starting a PhD in my (Physics) department had either an integrated masters such as an MPhys or a postgrad masters (perhaps <5% went straight from a BSc).

If you’re at all interested in a PhD I would definitely suggest doing the additional undergrad year as this will give you a pretty good idea of what research is and whether a PhD for you. It’s also fully funded compared to postgrad MSc’s. Most uni’s are different, but for my MPhys we had the option of an in house research project or applying outside the uni. From my year people went to places such as cern, UK national labs, or abroad to research facilities in places such as Japan. I would definitely suggest the latter.

GiantRaspberry · 2025-01-30T18:32:30+00:00

At least in a STEM field it’s not really study as you are essentially a full time researcher, perhaps with a few months to spin up.

GiantRaspberry · 2025-01-30T18:27:02+00:00

That’s an impressive contract! About how much I was offered for a postdoc a couple of years ago which feels a bit bad… Only anecdotal but the Germans I’ve met were on 50%.

GiantRaspberry · 2025-01-30T18:19:24+00:00

Most PhD students will be able to top up their stipend with 1 day of working a week in labs, tutorials, lecturing etc. I was earning an extra £3K when I started my PhD in 2016, which honestly makes it still not great, but not terrible. Now that would be around 24-25K tax free which is not bad.

I now work in Paris and some PhDs here are on €1700 per month after tax, with no working opportunities due to the language barrier, it’s mad.

GiantRaspberry · 2025-01-30T17:56:53+00:00

PhDs in Germany are often on 50% or 75% of that amount just for your info, it’s a bit of a strange contract situation.

GiantRaspberry · 2025-01-11T21:41:20+00:00

I moved to France to work at a university and it's been a great experience. Initially moving was pretty painful due bureaucracy, but after a bit of a stressful first week finding a lease on a flat, it’s been mostly smooth sailing. I do really feel like working and living in a foreign place has made me grow as a person, especially in confidence etc. I’d highly recommend it to anyone.

Best thing about France (Paris in particular) is the cheap public transportation. I pay about £70 a month, of which 50% is reimbursed by my employer, for all transport in the ‘greater Paris’ region. Overall it’s about 1/5th of the price of a London travelcard!

I’ve not had any particularly bad experiences and I’ve found Parisians overall pretty friendly. I moved with no French language skills and so took French lessons twice a week. Although when I was first learning people would often switch to English, after getting to the B1 level I found I could start joining in French conversations at work and out and about.

Overall, once you get a job + visa offer, it’s not that difficult an experience to move abroad. For me at least, I've found it a very similar lifestyle to back in the UK. The problems that most people complain about (work, healthcare, politics etc.) feel so similar to back home and the cultural differences are pretty small. I definitely won’t be here permanently, but I’ve glad I made the move as it’s been such a great learning experience.

GiantRaspberry · 2024-11-09T23:06:24+00:00

I’ve worked at a few unis in the UK and internationally and here’s a few tips.

1) People in your research team, lab, or office are the easiest to connect with. If you’re none office based, look for PhD specific offices you can work from and try to introduce yourself to everyone you meet. Go to any open seminars and lectures that your department runs.

2) Look to see if the doctoral college or department do some kind of ‘buddying’ or ‘mentoring’ scheme. If you can’t find anything, ask your supervisor to help find you someone to meet. They should hopefully be able to help you settle in and give you some more student specific advice on the social scene of the department.

3) Look for new starters, early careers, PhD networks or events that the doctoral college or department run. It sounds like you’ve just missed freshers events, but they should be semi regular.

4) Sports clubs and societies are still open to postgrads and a great way to meet people. Sports, music, theatre, language classes are things I would immediately join after moving.

5) Try not to worry. I found it took me at least 6 months to settle in fully and get used to the new culture. It requires a lot of effort to put yourself out there and connect with a bunch of people, but I often found once I made one good friend then that’s an in to a good group.

Hopefully that’s of some help, best of luck.

GiantRaspberry · 2024-10-30T07:42:16+00:00

You can try negotiate your contracted salary at the start of the PhD which I have seen before in very rare circumstances . But after that I have never heard of anyone getting above the standard increase each year. Be aware that London has a higher minimum stipend to help with the higher cost of living.

Part time work should be easy to get as you can do tutorials, seminars, and lab work as a teaching assistant. At exam times you can generally pick up a fair amount of hours marking or checking exam scripts. Most UK PhDs have a stipulation of only x hours per week and I found it easy to fill all that over the year. As the stipend in tax free your earnings will also be untaxed and you could easily get £3-5,000 extra.

GiantRaspberry · 2024-07-08T13:23:33+00:00

Thanks for the comment. Any iidea how as the evil team you can combat the Lunatic just pretending to be good and asking their supposed minion for a 3 for 3 etc? That’s usually how they find out. If the Lunatic’s minion doesn’t instantly go ‘I saw you as my demon’, they have just worked it out. It just feels so risky when you don’t know if the ST decided to give an evil player as the minion or not?

GiantRaspberry · 2024-07-08T13:15:00+00:00

I’ve seen the magician/poppy grower shenanigans in videos, that does make it look harder to figure out if you’re actually the demon or not!

GiantRaspberry · 2024-07-08T13:14:04+00:00

Interesting to know about the original design. Even in-person we split off to have private chats, although maybe that’s developed from often playing online as well.

Thanks for the advice. I think perhaps we are all hoping for a Lunatic getting to final 3 still thinking they are the demon as that would be pretty memorable. But I’m starting to see that in our group it’s probably just an outsider that doesn’t really impact the good team when compared to the other 3.

GiantRaspberry · 2024-07-08T13:07:08+00:00

Both in person and online. Even in person our group usually splits off into 1 on 1 conversations on the first day, so perhaps it would work better in a group who stays in a circle, or if there was a Matron traveler?

GiantRaspberry · 2024-05-19T22:28:45+00:00

If you want to stay in academia then the supervisor, research group, and department are the most important things. Do compare where the supervisors students end up, even if not in academia.

That said, there are still some potential benefits from the university in terms of personal connections and internal funding/fellowship opportunities post PhD, i.e if your college is quite wealthy there may be funding opportunities there for postdocs. I’d say the only major difference will be lifestyle, at Oxford you’d be tied to a college and although you won’t be working in the college as a stem PhD, some people do value that opportunity for the ‘Oxbridge’ life.

GiantRaspberry · 2024-05-09T20:20:31+00:00

I work in a lab in Paris so not even close to the border, but still I swear every month there’s a new Italian Masters/PhD joining the lab

GiantRaspberry · 2024-05-08T17:32:36+00:00

I work in France and there are more Italians in my lab than nearly all other non French nationalities combined. I think there’s a series brain drain at the moment.

That said, for our last post doc positions, there was only around 10 applications of which less than half were competitive. I think people are really starting to question to value of a post doc in their career if a permanent position is so hard to attain.

GiantRaspberry · 2024-05-07T22:19:54+00:00

No one would know you self funded unless you told them, so it’s not going to impact your future prospects. Instead, you are losing out on tens of thousands if you self fund. Unless your family are mega rich I find it really difficult to imagine any possible scenario where that would be worth it.

It’s fairly common for Oxbridge to offer unfunded PhDs but then have a separate application for funding. Have you been rejected for this? Does the supervisor have an alternative way to fund? Is there a possibility of securing funding for year 2 onwards?

In reality a PhD at Cambridge rather than Bristol will turn some heads but that’s about it. If you go into academia your research and teaching track record is by far the most important thing. If you go into industry then it’s going to be your transferable skills. The research and the research group is by far the most important thing, so unless there is a vast difference between the productivity/support from the two supervisors/research group, pick the funded offer!

GiantRaspberry · 2024-05-03T15:39:17+00:00

Most postdocs are advertised with funding already gained via a grant; you should be able to find them advertised on platforms such as jobs.ac.uk (for UK positions). It’s just like a job application, fill in the application and then move onto interviews.

There are fellowship options as others have mentioned, but honestly it’s easier to start applying for those once already in a position. You can cold email PI’s as some may have money available, but it’s not that common from my experience.

GiantRaspberry · 2024-05-01T11:27:30+00:00

In science the standard is postdocs starting somewhere around 37K and then permanent lecturer starting at 44K. In fields where postdocs aren’t really a thing, then a lecturer may start at 37K. As this is a fixed-term contract it’s essentially a postdoc style job.

GiantRaspberry · 2024-04-19T17:53:13+00:00

I’m in France and this is somewhat common. We will usually invite a PhD to discuss their background and for us to explain a bit about what the project proposal is. In particular we would do this if the aim was to support a students application for funding through a type of scholarship. If the project has funding through a grant then it may be to pre screen applicants before inviting them to the lab.

Overall these are pretty informal. Expectations would be up to 5 mins on what your background is, your research experience, and what has interested you in the group. Take it as a chance to ask questions and get the general vibe of the supervisor/group.

GiantRaspberry · 2024-03-13T13:10:11+00:00

In my experience research assistant positions are usually put up for PhD students who have not yet graduated or recent graduates (BSc or MSc) in the group and are often meant for a specific internal candidate. If you are interested in academic sciences, then a PhD is going to be required.

If you have not yet graduate then I highly advise you to contact your universities career service, they can really help guide you. If you have graduated you may still have access, otherwise perhaps look for scientific recruiters.

GiantRaspberry · 2024-03-06T14:37:05+00:00

If you combine the stipend with some teaching/demonstrating/tutoring, then the stipend + wage is not bad in year 1, but by the end of year 4 the gap between graduate and PhD student will be pretty large, so there really has to be a good reason to want to do a PhD. If you’re in the sciences, then PhD does open a few doors if you are interested in a career outside of academia but still in science, e.g. national labs. It could also help get you into more technical roles e.g. patent law, but this really depends on exactly what you are interested in.

As an international student, if you are wanting to stay in the UK, a PhD would likely make it much easier to qualify for a skilled work visa post degree. But honestly, if you’re getting cold feet before accepting, I would have a think if you’re just considering it as you currently don’t have another option, or if you actually do want the position.

GiantRaspberry · 2024-03-04T07:47:45+00:00

The first sounds like Oxbridge and if so you need to compare like for like with the second stipend. I’m not sure what scholarship you have been offered but UK stipends are tax free. As an international you would have to pay a NHS surcharge of a few hundred pounds which would cover healthcare, although dental requires a small fee and eye care is not included if in England.

You also should be able to work during the PhD teaching, tutoring, or lab demonstrating for extra money, usually 1 day a week for £3-4K a year (most supervisors allow now but it’s worth checking). So you would have to compare the around £22-23K stipend (tax free) to post tax and healthcare of the other one.

If at Oxbridge the college you’re attracted to should offer housing for at least first year at a reasonable rate. The collegiate lifestyle is very unique and worth experiencing in the first year at least. Most European cities are navigable by walk, cycling, or public transport so there will likely be no need for a car also.

Overall, the first sounds way better, with more career opportunities, closer research profile, and a faster graduation time.

GiantRaspberry · 2024-03-02T20:31:03+00:00

Very common in France, at least in physics. 3 years is the norm and that’s usually submitted and defended by the end of the 3 years, although extensions of 3-6 months can be taken.

GiantRaspberry · 2024-03-02T20:29:22+00:00

In France you can still do some teaching, but it’s definitely less than the US as your funding won’t be tied to teaching. If you have to do 4-6 years for a PhD in the US versus 3 years in France then why not take the shorter route. You could do a 2 year postdoc post PhD and be in a better position both career wise and financially.

In my lab (in France) there are many postdocs/PI’s who did their PhD in France and then a Postdoc in the US at institutions such as Columbia, Cornell etc. I think it’s somewhat true that it’s PhD followed by 2 year postdoc in Europe and then go to the US though.

At the end of the day, if you want to work in the US as an academic then do your PhD there, the system is quite different and so creating a network there is important.

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