The Savvy Scientist
Experiences of a London PhD student and beyond
PhD Salary UK: How Much Do PhD Students Get Paid Compared to Graduates?
Considering whether to stay in university as a PhD student or to leave and get a job? If so, you may be wondering “How much do PhD student get paid?” and “How does a UK PhD salary compare to a graduate salary?” .
In this post I delve into the details and reveal that the difference in take home pay between a UK PhD stipend and a grad position can actually be much lower than it first appears!
If you’re looking to know how much a PhD could boost your career and salary after finishing your doctoral degree I’d suggest checking out my post: Is a PhD Worth It ? See details here for how much people earn in academia after getting their PhD .
I also have a complementary post covering my monthly expenses as a PhD student. You may also wish to check out my guide to the application process , PhD FAQs and article on how I got a PhD scholarship .
February 2024 : This post has been updated to include figures for the 2023/24 academic year.
Do PhD students get paid in the UK? If so, how much do PhD students get paid?
Before we delve into the details let’s first cover whether PhD students get paid in the UK. Generally, yes, most PhD students get what is called a PhD stipend to support themselves during their PhD. Importantly, a PhD stipend (in the UK at least) is tax free .
It is worth noting though that not all PhD projects automatically include funding. Funding may also not be applicable for every applicant. For example sometimes it may only be available to home students i.e. those from the UK.
Therefore some students may resort to self funding their PhD. In STEM subjects self funding a PhD is pretty rare and often only happens because of limitations in funding eligibility. I’ve personally worked with a mix of funded and self-funded (often by parents) PhD students, though most are certainly funded by grants and scholarships.
If your project doesn’t already include funding, for most people I strongly advise trying to find funding rather than considering self funding. For more information on this check out my post on PhD Funding in the UK.
2023/24 UK PhD Salary
- PhD salary outside of London: In 2023/24 most new PhD students in the UK will receive a PhD stipend worth at least £18,622 per year .
- PhD salary in London : In 2023/24 most new PhD students in London will receive an increased stipend to account for cost of living , which is typically around £20,622 per year .
Notice that the PhD stipend for outside of London is at least £18,622 per year. I’ve seen several advertised at the London rate. There are also some available at an even higher rate. For example I know of CDTs in Bristol paying more like £24,000 tax-free.
Your PhD stipend will usually provide funding for 3.5 years, although it can occasionally be for 3 or 4 years.
These values are for most PhD studentships including those awarded by all UK research councils following the UKRI guidelines .
Certain scholarship schemes pay upwards of £25,000 per year, such as the £25,150 (2024/25 rate) President’s PhD Scholarships at Imperial. For details on how to get such a scholarship, check out this article where I go over how I got awarded my own PhD scholarship.
The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network (ITN) runs all across the EU. As well as nice training and exchange opportunities it pays a staggering stipend of approx £40,000 – £45,000 . The grant level is reviewed each year and increases if you have family dependents. I personally wish I’d known about it earlier and highly recommend anyone interested puts a reminder in their diary for when the next call opens!
Is a UK PhD stipend taxable?
Here is what PhD stipends look like compared to some fairly typical starting grad salaries in the UK:
At first glance a PhD stipend doesn’t stack up well against the higher wages of a graduate salary which can sometimes be twice this amount or more. But crucially PhD stipends for students are tax free !
There are a few other financial perks that come with being a student so I was intrigued to find out how the two salaries really compared. The results may surprise you!
Below is a high level overview and I’ll delve into each of the numbers in depth later in the post.
Grad salary vs PhD salary starting numbers
As mentioned earlier, in 2023/24 a typical PhD stipend outside of London is at least £18,622 . Within London this will typically increase slightly to account for cost of living to around £20,622 . These rates rise every year for new students, but do not rise for each year of the PhD. So for new students considering starting in 2024/25 a UK PhD salary will likely be around £19,100 outside of London.
For the sake of simplifying the comparison I averaged the 2023/24 PhD stipend to £19,622 for all PhD students studying in the UK.
A fairly typical grad salary, for someone qualified enough to be considering a science PhD, is around £30,000 . Of course this is an average salary so needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. As the number can vary dramatically it may be considered too low by some, but I think it’s a good benchmark accounting for different regions of the UK.
I’ve included higher and lower graduate salaries too in the summary charts for this post.
Salary Gap: £10,378
On the face of it the PhD student would be earning £10,378 less per year: around 35% lower! This is enough of a difference to put off a lot of potential PhD candidates who’ve likely spent the last few years building up student loans.
But unlike normal wages, PhD stipends are tax free so maybe things aren’t as bleak for PhD students as it seems? Let’s explore how they really compare.
Income Tax & National Insurance Contributions
The 2023/24 Personal Income Allowance is £12,570. This means that you can earn up to this amount and not pay any income tax. Earnings from £12,571 up to £50,270 fall into the basic rate bracket of 20% tax.
PhD Student Salary: PhD stipends are tax free and incur no income tax or national insurance contributions. Remaining stipend: £19,622
Professional Salary: On £30,000 you’d pay £ 3486 in income tax and NI contributions of £2004 . Remaining wage: £24,510
Salary Gap: £4888 Income tax and national insurance contributions have immediately almost halved the difference in take-home pay from £10,378 down to £4888!
Student Loan Repayment
PhD Student Salary: Even with a PhD stipend you are officially an unwaged student so you won’t make student loan repayments as a PhD student. Remaining stipend: £19,622 [see footnote 1]
Professional Salary: The amount you may have to pay for student loan repayments depends upon when you started your undergraduate course. If you started your undergraduate course since 2012 you pay student loan repayments on earnings above £27,295. Meaning on a salary of £30,000 you’d pay £243 a year on student loan repayments. If you began your undergraduate course before 2012, repayments start on salaries above £22,015 and would be £541 a year . Most of you likely completed your undergrad degree recently so we’ll go with the more recent, lower, repayments. Remaining wage: £24,267
Salary Gap: £4645
Council Tax
PhD Student Salary: Another cost that students are exempt from is council tax. Though be careful if you share a house with non-students since council tax must then be paid on the property. [2] Remaining stipend: £19,622
Professional Salary: Council tax varies greatly between council boroughs, and depends on the property you live in. For example in Cardiff I lived in a one bed flat and the annual council tax was £1050 per year. During my PhD in London council tax for a lovely three bed house in Clapham it was £1000! Now that I live in Bristol it is over £2000 per year for a three bed house. I’ll go to the liberty of saying on average it would be £1150 per year and would be divided between two people: -£575 each. Total: £23,692
Salary Gap: £4070
Private Pension Contributions
PhD Student Salary: Although universities pay a PhD stipend to students, you are not a member of staff and hence do not make private pension contributions. Remaining stipend: £19,622
Professional Salary: Legislation has been phasing in making contribution to private pensions mandatory. The upside is that employers match your contribution up to varying percentages: sometimes up to about 10% of your salary. Additionally there are tax benefits to contributing so overall you could see it as boosting your salary looking at the longer term view. [3]
I believe there are troubling times ahead for 20-somethings and personally am not relying on a state pension existing by the time we all reach retirement age. Therefore I wholeheartedly recommend making a decently sized contribution at least up to the same amount that your employer matches. For the purposes of this comparison I won’t deduct anything for private pension since it’s not really being deducted so I’ll call this one a draw. Total: £23,692
Student Discount
Ah the obvious one! Student discount may have been the first thing you thought of when you saw this article, but I’m not going to include it in this analysis.
A student card does allow a significant amount to be saved, not only on luxuries such as entry to attractions and deals in shops but also travel. For example in London, an 18+ student oystercard gets you 30% off travelcards. For a monthly zones 1-3 ticket this would save about £50 a month: over £600 a year!
The reason I’ve not included it? How much you use student discount depends on your circumstances and lifestyle and I wanted to keep the analysis widely applicable. Also, there are ways around needing to pay for travel at all: I started cycling to university every day in London .
Curveball: the £12,570 Tax-Free Personal Income Allowance
So far the recent grad is still earning an additional £4842 per year: almost a third more than the PhD student. Owing to the fact that PhD students are exempt from income tax, national insurance contributions, council tax and student loan repayments the gap in earnings has shrunk considerably.
One last calculation I wanted to try was to consider the scenario of a student earning some additional money on the side. It is a common thing to make extra money with teaching assistant, tutoring and consultancy opportunities. In fact I think every PhD student I know does at least a little. There are of course non-academic routes to make additional money too.
I have written a post about some of the ways that I make extra money , many of which are in fact available to non-students. Do be careful to check that this is acceptable at your institution. My favourite way to make extra money is matched betting which is tax-free for everybody. You can find my complete guide to matched betting here .
Tax-free side-hustle
Currently you can earn £12,570 tax free in the UK . Given that the PhD stipend itself is tax free, unlike an equivalent worker you wouldn’t pay any tax on extra earnings up to this threshold. This might sound insignificant but it’s not.
Admittedly, unless you’re very entrepreneurial, it is unlikely that you would make use of the whole tax-free opportunity. But earning several thousand pounds per year on top of the stipend is certainly common.
As pointed out by a reader, John, in the comments below: a consideration should be that that some universities limit how much paid work you can do per month. Even so, there are lots of ways to make money and your time as a student could even be a great time to start your own business .
I’ve been paid more than £25 an hour doing pretty simple work for the university , so these earnings can mount up quickly.
To illustrate the extra earning potential afforded to PhD students, let’s consider the most extreme case where the tax-free earnings are maximised.
Since 2017 there has been a £1000 tax-free trading allowance for workers in the UK , meaning even those in a normal taxable job can earn £1000 on top of their salary from side-hustle jobs. Therefore the grad will pay additional taxes on £11,570 instead of £12,570.
PhD Student Salary: An enterprising student maxing out the tax-free allowance could earn £12,570 a year and pay no national insurance either, leaving additional take-home pay of £12,570 . With a PhD stipend of £17,062 the student would in total earn £32,192 for the year. They’d keep 100% of those extra earnings.
Again, yes it is unlikely that someone would really earn this much on the side but it is common to make at least several thousand throughout the year.
Professional Salary: As a grad on £30,000 per year in your main job, to have an equivalent side-hustle earning £12,570, in total you’d pay tax on £41,570. Income tax would be £5800: £2314 higher than on their base salary of £30,000. NI contributions would be £3335: £1331 higher. Plus student loan repayments would be £1284: £1041 higher. Student loan repayments really start increasing considerably when you’re earning more. These additional taxes and costs total deductions of £4686, leaving the professional with extra take-home pay of £7884 . Including their day-job the total they’d be left with is £31,576 .
For this extra £12,570 of work, the student would pocket 100% of it and the professional would keep £7884 ( 63% ). Looking at the pre-tax difference in their earnings: at face value the student would be earning £32,192 and the grad £41,570: a difference of £9378. Yet once taxes are considered the final result is two people with remarkably similar take-home pays: a difference of £616 in favour of the student!
Check it out:
Under these circumstances the student would in fact take home £616 more per year than the professional! I used the maximum tax-free allowance to highlight the point and yes it’s unlikely that many students will fully utilise it. Yet the point stands that any additional earnings are much better retained by PhD students.
If someone was running a fully-fledged business on the side then the difference becomes even bigger as the grad salary approaches the next tax bracket for earnings of £50,271 and above, at which point the rate of income tax doubles.
There are very few legal ways of making money which are tax-exempt for everyone. One of these rare cases is also my favourite way to make money on the side: matched betting. Intrigued? I’ve written a huge guide to it here . In this rare instance none of the grad’s extra earnings get eroded by tax.
Grad salary vs PhD student salary conclusion
Starting from a difference of £10,378 in salary, taxes and other outgoings have knocked £6308 off the graduate’s wage. This brings the difference in earnings down to £4070. This equates to £339 per month. More than nothing, but not a huge difference. And this doesn’t include any extra earnings on the side which the student can do a much better job of retaining.
Surprised how small the difference is? I certainly was whilst I was writing this.
Here is a chart for comparing a wider range of salaries:
This analysis doesn’t take in to account the extra earning power that gaining a PhD could bring, nor the potential lifestyle benefits of being a student such as autonomy and flexible working hours which it could be argued level the playing field even further. Plus the opportunities afforded to PhD students, which everyone should seize. And yes, student discount if you use it.
Furthermore if you consider the opportunity to make an additional £12k+ per year before incurring tax any difference in earnings can become close to negligible!
I hope that this post has helped explain that the wage gap between UK PhD stipends and grad salaries is not as dramatic it first seems. Perhaps it’s even encouraged you to consider a PhD. If so I’ve written posts to help with your application and an article on how to improve your chances of securing a PhD scholarship . Also if you’re curious you can read about life as a PhD student along with profiles of PhD students around the world .
If you’d like personalised help with your PhD application I am now starting to offer a small number of one-to-one sessions. Please contact me to find out more or click here to book a call.
What do you think about this comparison between a UK PhD stipend and grad salary? Do you think there are any additional factors that I have overlooked? Please share your thoughts in the comments below and if you’ve enjoyed this post you can subscribe to hear about more content:
[1] Some people might say that by continuing studying you’re simply delaying your student loan repayment. Considering most people don’t pay it off in the 30 odd years until any outstanding balance is wiped I think it’s fair to say that this doesn’t ring true.
[2] No council tax is paid on a property if all occupants are students. If you live with one professional they can claim the single occupancy discount of 25% but with two or more professionals the full council tax amount must be paid. If you share in a mixed group it is up to you how you divide it within the group. Ironically given the spirit of this post, last year I voluntarily did pay an equal (third) share of council tax given that my partner was moving to London specifically to live with me…
[3] If you go on to work for a university after your PhD you’ll be enrolled in the USS pension scheme where you’ll usually pay in 9% of your salary and your employer pays in 19%: yes, nineteen! For comparison most often the best private companies may match contributions up to 10%. Pension contributions are often removed from your pay packet before taxes. This effectively leaves you with a smaller salary and hence pay less taxes and national insurance contributions. Between this and your employer’s contributions overall your salary could be “boosted” by quite a bit, around 20% in the USS example, if you consider the pension as part of your long-term salary.
All calculations were carried out using the tax calculator on Martin’s Money Saving Expert. A fantastic website for all things personal finance.
Share this:
- Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
Related Posts
How To Get A Fully Funded PhD Scholarship
14th February 2023 30th January 2024
How to Find PhD Funding in the UK
2nd January 2018 30th January 2024
17 Comments on “PhD Salary UK: How Much Do PhD Students Get Paid Compared to Graduates?”
It’s probably worth factoring in that most HEIs limit PhD students to a maximum I’m of 10hours pw of external work. By my rough estimate, the student would have to earn £25 an hour to make the money you’ve described here. The side hustle, should probably be halved to reflect a more typical salary. Still a fair whack though.
Hi John, yes that’s a good point and I’ll update the post to reflect this. In my experience £25/hour is realistic, at least here at Imperial, though I appreciate it would rarely get fully utilised. Thanks again
Hello Jeff! I am a Sustainability Consultant from India, looking at PhD opportunities in UK. It would be great if we can connect and discuss a bit about your experience and journey. Looking forward!
Hey Akhyata! Great, yes let’s have a chat. I’ve emailed you to arrange it. Best wishes, Jeff
Hi Jeff! I love your article, I’m a pharmacist juggling the idea of a PhD. I would love to take up on your offer to connect.
Hey Kai! Great, I’ll email you now to arrange it.
Hi Jeff, I am a law grad very interested in further study and pursuing a PhD.
I would love the chance to chat to you further about this article and your experience!
Thanks in advance
Hey Clara, Yeah no worries. I’ll send you an email now to discuss.
Hi Jeff, I’m putting together a PhD proposal at the moment and would really appreciate your input on a few things about the process when you have some free time. Cheers, Ben
Hi Ben, sure no problem, I’m happy to try and help. Let’s discuss over email.
Hi Jeff, Thank you for taking the time to write the articles you do. On this particular article, you have saved us all quite a lot of time. With such a minimal difference even without an additional income, it makes a lot of sense, especially with an increase when you graduate.
Those from the UK can take a £24k loan from the Gov (as if they didn’t have enough debt already). Still, it could enable a student to focus more on academia, speeding up the process and increasing the quality of work.
Apologies Jeff, the stipend and student loan are not available at the same time.
Thanks very much for your comments Tyrone. I’m pleased you find the website useful!
If you can get funding, I agree that there isn’t much of a reason to not do a PhD.
I must admit I’ve never looked much at postgraduate loans, in part because I encourage everyone doing a PhD (in STEM at least) to pursue funding. We’re doing PhDs which can help wider society and it doesn’t make sense for people to have to sacrifice even more by adding extra debt if they can avoid it. Interesting to hear that you can’t take out a loan if you have a stipend, thanks for letting me know.
Perhaps of interest to you, there is a post going live tomorrow which should put the length of a PhD in context of someone’s whole career. In short it doesn’t sacrifice much of a career but of course but make a very useful addition!
If there are any other topics you want to see covered please do let me know.
Best wishes.
Tax Free is not a perk. If you are not paying tax in the UK you cannot contribute to your pension. This may not seem important now, but it will later. This is especially important for mature students who can really lose out if there is a break in their NI contributions.
Thanks for your comment Marie.
The point is that normal tax-paying jobs don’t actually pay quite as much more than PhD stipends once you consider tax. I agree that over the long term avoiding paying taxes is neither a good idea because of things like pensions, nor is it socially ethical. But I don’t think there is any harm in taking 3-4 years out for a PhD:
You have to pay NI for a minimum of only 10 years to qualify for some level of state pension in the UK. After this the pension received simply increases linearly with the number of years of contributions, up to a max of 35 years. With retirement age edging up to 70 that gives at least 45 years between undergrad and retirement so most people will comfortably qualify (for now) for the full state pension. I’d argue that there is ample time to earn some tax free money as a PhD student without having to worry about making enough NI contributions. You can even voluntarily pay NI to gain additional qualifying years on your record. More generally I’d suggest also to not rely on receiving the state pension, I’m not personally betting on there even being a state pension by my own retirement (nor do I want to retire at 70+) so it’s always a good idea to build up your own private pension and savings too!
Hi Jeff, I was looking for funded PhD projects in the Marie Curie network and found a few on the EURAXESS website, but they all require a Master’s degree to apply. I was wondering if there is something I am missing or if you know where to find PhD funding opportunities in the Marie Curie network with only a bachelor’s degree. Thank you.
Hi Alex, thanks for your comment. I must admit I’m not an expert on all of the different Marie Curie funding routes available. If you’ve already done an extensive search then it sounds like yes they all may require a Master’s. By the way, when I first wrote this post I believed that all PhDs funded by UK research councils (UKRI) were at the very specific levels as mentioned in the post. However, I now know that there are some exceptions. For example, the Interactive AI CDT here at Bristol pays a stipend of £22,106: quite a bit higher than the standard non-London rate. CDTs such as this one include a foundation year and not everyone has a Master’s, so it may be worth considering schemes such as this. Best wishes, Jeff.
Leave a Reply Cancel reply
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Notify me of follow-up comments by email.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .
Privacy Overview
PhD funding programme launched
£48 million over 5 years to attract best talent
By Paul Seagrove
Trinity College and the University of Cambridge’s new £48 million programme enabling fully-funded PhDs has been launched. It is seeking the brightest minds from across the world to conduct ground-breaking research, creating the next generation of pioneering treatments, technology and services.
The Trinity Cambridge Research Studentships (TCRS) have been created to respond to declining funding opportunities for PhD research, both in the sciences and the humanities. In the next decade, the programme will support up to 300 fully funded PhD studentships, depending on the breakdown between home and international students.
Trinity Fellow and Nobel Laureate Dr Venki Ramakrishnan said:
"PhD students are the lifeblood of new research, making breakthroughs in all areas of science, and it is very important that we be able to attract the best brains to Cambridge wherever they may be from. The Trinity Cambridge Research Studentships Programme will greatly facilitate that goal."
The first students funded by the new programme will begin in October 2025; anyone applying to join a PhD programme in 2025-26 will be considered for this funding.
Trinity College
Cambridge Pro-Vice Chancellor for Education Professor Bhaskar Vira said:
"If the UK is to continue to be world leading in research, it is important to support the next generation of PhD students. We are grateful for the funding provided to postgraduate research students through the UK government’s investments in science and research, but also aware of worrying pressures on budgets."
We work closely with many external partners and benefactors who allow us to continue to invest in this future research capacity, for the wider benefit of society. We welcome the generous support of Trinity College for this new scheme, which will ensure more students are able to continue their research careers here in Cambridge, and look forward to working with partners who would be interested in collaborating with us on this initiative."
Cambridge University has 4,339 PhDs students (2022-2023 figures) but the availability of fully funded places has declined by an estimated 140 per year since 2018 and analysis suggests this will get worse.
Senior Tutor at Trinity Professor Catherine Barnard said:
"We are committed to using our resources to support the next generation of world-class researchers whose work will improve the lives of many and help tackle some of the toughest problems the world faces."
"Trinity’s five living Nobel Laureates show that being able to change the world begins with your PhD. Whether you want to create new life-saving drugs, discover new planets or new understandings of the relationship between economics and ethics, Cambridge is the place to realise your ambitions – and change the world."
The PhD awards will be highly competitive and seek students with the potential to be the Nobel Laureates of the future and help increase Cambridge’s £30bn contribution to the UK economy.
Professor Didier Queloz
Trinity Fellow Professor Didier Queloz, who received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2019 for the discovery of the first exoplanet during his PhD research, said Cambridge was an extraordinary place.
"When I came ten years ago, I was attracted by the diversity of the culture, the Cambridge way of life – in the sense that you interact with a lot of people, you have this mixing of different ideas - the College system is really unique in the world. We should maximize the number of PhD students and the diversity of PhD students."
With the first year of the programme fully funded by Trinity College and the University of Cambridge, matched funding is sought to unlock resources and achieve the programme’s 10-year goal of £48 million in new funding for PhDs.
Trinity student Bjorn Olaisen chose Cambridge over Harvard for his PhD in medical sciences in the lab of Sir Shankar Balasubramanian, where he is investigating the ageing process.
Bjorn said full PhD funding was key to enabling him to focus on his research and, with interest already from Cambridgeshire biotech companies, develop therapies that could enable us to live better for longer.
"You feel a great sense of gratitude because someone has paid for you to do research so you get extra inspiration, an extra drive and I really feel that. ‘So as my supervisor put it, you can do something in your PhD that leads to a Nobel Prize. The sky is the limit."
The Trinity Cambridge Research Studentships builds on the success of the Student Support Initiative by making even more financial help available to PhD students.
To find out more about studying for a PhD at Cambridge go to: https:www.postgraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/apply
Published 11th November 2024
The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .
- PhD Salary in UK – Explained
- Funding a PhD
What Are PhD Salaries?
The average cost of undertaking a PhD in the UK is approximately £20,000 per academic year for UK students and £40,000 for international students. To help offset the cost of this, many students question whether undertaking a doctorate comes with a PhD salary.
The salary of a PhD student is governed by three factors: whether they’re assisting in undergraduate teaching, assisting in research, or have secured a PhD with a stipend. Depending on which of the three categories a student falls within, they will receive an income during their studies, however, the amount will differ by a substantial amount.
To help show you how you can fund your postgraduate degree and how much you can expect to earn whilst doing so, carry on reading below.
Types of PhD Salaries
There are three types of PhD degree salaries:
- Graduate Teaching Assistantships (GTAs) . In exchange for a salary, you’ll be required to assist in the delivery of one or more courses over a number of years. This includes, but is not limited to, marking student tutorials, supervising lab experiments and providing support to undergraduates during office hours. Besides this, you may have to teach a small section of the course itself. You can discover more about GTAs on King’s College London’s website.
- Research Assistantships (RAs) . In exchange for a salary, you assist a departmental professor with their research. In the ideal scenario, the professor you work with should also be your PhD supervisor and the research you’re asked to support with relates to your own doctoral project.
- Stipend via Studentship: A stipend is a non-repayable grant provided to doctoral students to help support their studies. A studentship covers a student’s tuition fees whilst a stipend covers a PhD student’s living costs. This includes outgoings such as rent, food, bills and basic travel. Unlike Graduate Teaching or Research Assistantships, stipends rarely have duties attached to them. The only expectation of receiving a stipend will be that you maintain continuous progress within your degree.
It’s worth noting these earning opportunities can be also be combined. For example, it’s possible to be a research assistant whilst also committing time to teach undergraduate students.
Average PhD Salary in UK
The average PhD student salary for teaching assistantships will vary depending on the level of responsibility you’re taking. However, to provide figures, past doctoral students have reported receiving approx. £10/hr for marking tutorials, £15/hr for leading laboratory sessions and up to £20/hr for leading undergraduate classes and tutorials.
The actual amount you can earn from teaching assistance will depend on the rate your department offers and the hours you can realistically take on. If you’re on a Graduate Teaching Assistantship programme, they will require you to dedicate a set number of hours per week. If you’re not on a GTA but would still like to earn an income through this scheme, you will likely need to commit several hours per week consistently. Although this can be a great way to earn whilst you study, you need to make sure you manage your time effectively as to not become overwhelmed by taking on an additional commitment.
The average salary for research assistantships will vary depending on the field of the doctoral degree you are enrolled in. Usually, these positions pay between £25,000 to £30,000 per year, however, it’s possible to come across positions which sit slightly outside of this. As a general rule of thumb, STEM assistors are paid more than non-STEM assistors.
In the UK, PhD students can receive a stipend which varies between £15,000 and £18,000 per annum. As part of the studentship your stipend is provided under, your tuition fees will also be paid for. UK tuition fees will vary between universities but are approximately £4,500 per year for doctoral courses starting in 2021/22 as per the UKRI recommendations .
Although £15,000 to £18,000 per year is the typical range for a stipend, some can be far greater than this. For example, Wellcome Trust , a research-charity based in London, offers an annual stipend of up to £23,300 and £26,000 for doctoral students located outside and within London, respectively.
Are PhD Salaries Taxed?
PhD stipends are tax free. Therefore, you don’t need to pay any income tax nor do you need to make any national insurance contributions. This means you’ll keep all the money you receive from an annual stipend. However, this is not the case for Research Assistants.
In the UK, Research Assistants are employed as university staff members and are paid a direct salary as opposed to a stipend. As a result, it will require you to pay tax on your earnings and make national insurance contributions.
To put this into perspective, for the 2019/20 UK tax year, you’re required to pay a 20% tax on any income above £12,500 but less than £50,000. You’re also required to make national insurance contributions of 12% of your weekly earnings over £166 but less than £962. This means that an annual Research Assistantship salary of £30,000 will equate to a take-home salary of £23,938 per year.
How to Get a PhD Stipend
To find research positions which offer stipends, we recommend you search our PhD database and filter by ‘funded’ positions.
Besides this, you can also secure a studentship from UK Research Councils or directly from your university as a scholarship. Independent organisations, such as charities and research trusts, and innovative firms within your industry also offer funding. You can read our PhD studentship guide to see how these work or our Where to find a PhD guide for further ideas.
Finding a PhD has never been this easy – search for a PhD by keyword, location or academic area of interest.
How to Get a Research Assistantship PhD
Unfortunately, research assistantships opportunities aren’t as common to come across compared to PhD stipends. Besides this, when they are available, they’re predominantly in STEM subjects such as computer science and engineering. The reason for this is these subjects usually have access to greater research grants and have a greater volume of practical work available.
To find a research assistantship, we recommend that you contact the university departments who host the courses you’re interested in directly. This is because research assistantships help professors with their research, and while they may require help, they may not be openly advertising for it. They may, therefore, be able to create a role for you within their department or put you into contact with one of their colleagues who already has an open position.
International Students
It’s worth noting that international students will have a harder time securing a funded PhD position than UK ‘home’ students will. This is largely because there are usually fewer funding opportunities available to international students, which as a result also attract significant competition.
Besides this, if you’re an international student studying in the UK you will most likely than not be on a Tier 4 visa. Although a Tier 4 visa will allow you to work to earn an additional income alongside any studentship you may have, there will be certain restrictions on what you can and can’t do. For example, during term-time, you won’t be allowed to work more than 20 hours per week. For a full list of restrictions, please refer to the government website.
Browse PhDs Now
Join thousands of students.
Join thousands of other students and stay up to date with the latest PhD programmes, funding opportunities and advice.
IMAGES
VIDEO