Academic vs Industry Careers for Scientists

I have a career of two halves. The first spent building an independent academic research career, culminating in working as a Principle Investigator at the University of Dundee, UK. Before making a mid-life career switch into scientific writing, where I now work as a Medical Communications professional in big pharma.

As someone who’s forged a career in both academia and industry, I find such comparisons compelling reading, as I’m able to reflect on how well my own experiences resonate with those of the wider scientific community.

Such insights are a goldmine of information for anyone considering a career move from academia to industry.

I’d like to share my take on the 2021 findings from Nature’s survey on academic vs industry careers, by focusing on five key topics pertinent to the career changer: Job satisfaction, salary, career progression, work-life balance, and workplace discrimination.

Job Satisfaction

The 2021 survey marked a low point of career satisfaction in the 10-year history of the survey, but it was markedly lower for academic scientists compared with those working in industry (56% vs 66%, respectively).³ Furthermore, 5% of respondents in industry reported feeling extremely dissatisfied with their jobs, but this was half the amount compared with scientists working in academia (11%).³

Impact of the pandemic was also captured by the survey, which found that 58% of academic respondents reported worsening of their job satisfaction, compared with 44% in industry.³

Clearly industry scored higher than academia for job satisfaction in the survey, but it is unclear if this reflects an emotional or financial response by respondents (or perhaps both).

It is important to not confuse job satisfaction as a marker of a positive working environment. It can be, but it can also be reflective of an interest and passion for the work. For example, a researcher may find their project interesting and important (therefore satisfying), but still experience stress and poor well-being in the work place.

Aside from having an interest in what I do, job satisfaction equally comprises of three other components for me personally. These include; being able to influence decisions that affect my work, job security, and career advancement:

Influencing Decisions

I’ve been very fortunate to enjoy my work in both academia and industry, but it’s my industry career that’s provided me with more of a voice, despite a reduction in job anonymity. This sounds like an oxymoron. In academia I had more freedom to work on what I wanted to, but this came at the expense of having zero control over outside influences that affected how I worked (particularly at the institutional, funding body, and government levels). Although I could express concerns in this environment, it often felt futile in that I had little control over external political factors that affected my work.

In industry however, I have been closer to the immediate leadership team, who do have the power to exert direct influence over my work. Hence, I can express concerns and opinions and be heard, which allows me to be more influential over decision making.

Job Security

Even with a faculty level position, I never felt job security in academia. Extremely high competition for positions, a need to keep producing high quality papers, and pull in a minimum amount of grant funding per annum, meant I could never have a scientific wobble (an off year with poor results), without running the risk of not meeting the metrics needed to keep my job.

In industry there is also the same pressure to produce results and meet deadlines. However, the difference is that as a scientist with expertise in the private sector, my skills are in high-demand. That continued interest from recruiters provides a strong level of job security that I did not have in my academic career.

Career Advancement

The classic academic apprenticeship of PhD student-postdoc-professor etc. is as slow as it is challenging. A career goal in academia could be a decade or more in the making. In a growing private sector role, significant career goals can be set to 3-5 years at the most, and can be implemented in less, should opportunities arise.

Personally, I enjoy this dynamic approach to career progression, although it should be said it needs to be acted upon by the individual. Your line manager can support your career development, but as the employee you need to be proactive and act on this support.

Overall, I feel a lot more in control of my industry career compared with my former academic one. And that’s good for my well-being, protecting against burnout, and positively impacting my mental health in the process.

Salary

Salaries are generally assumed to be higher in industry. Findings from Nature’s 2021 salary survey supports this assumption, which found that 17% of industry respondents reported making >$150k/annum vs only 5% of academics who achieve such a salary.²

For the highest salary brackets in the survey ($110,000–$149,999, $150,000–$199,999, and $200,000+), there was at least a 2-fold higher increase in respondents working in industry compared with those reporting such salaries who work in academia.² Lower wage brackets on the other hand ($30,000–$49,999 and $50,000–$79,999), were more commonly reported amongst academic employees compared with those working in industry.²

Perhaps reflective of these salary differences, levels of compensation satisfaction were lower in academic (<50%) compared with industry employees (62%).²

This more limited remuneration reported in academia, might be reflective of the reliance on ‘soft money’ leading to the adjunct, fixed-term contracts that are common practice amongst academic employers.

Soft money is obtained externally from institutions. It must be pursued regularly, and used economically, creating uncertain and non-permanent employment practices within academia. In response to the unpredictability and limitations of funding, academic employers need to maintain flexibility within their workforce, resulting in economized, fixed-term contracts for researchers.

Money is far from everything when it comes to weighing up one’s job prospects, but the piece-of-mind that a permanent, well-paid job can provide should not be underestimated either. For me personally, I’ve only been able to achieve such reassurance in the private sector.

Career Progression 

One of the striking findings from Nature’s 2021 Salary and Job survey found that respondents in industry were more likely to feel positive than those in academia (64% vs 42%, respectively),⁵ and career optimism is likely to play a role here.

In academia, post-docs greatly outnumber the tenure-track posts available,⁶ leaving lots of researchers chasing every job. In my experience industry offers the opposite, where many companies are offering high salaries and benefits to attract strong candidates with experience.

This creates very different working environments. One in academia where scientists are operating in an employer’s market, compared with many private sectors, which are operating in an employee’s job market. The latter provides scientists with leverage to progress their career should they wish. It provides options to not only increase income, but also develop their careers by obtaining new skills and seizing learning opportunities, by leveraging on the demand from competitors.

One such private sector job market is the Medical Communications (Med Comms) industry in which I work. Within 6 months of my first Med Comms role, I was approached by recruiters, and this headhunting has continued for the 5 years since I transitioned into the sector.

Work-life Balance 

Fifty-nice percent of Nature’s 2021 Salary and Job survey respondents reported feeling satisfied with their work-life balance, which was down from 70% in 2018.³ It is tempting to speculate that this drop may be caused by pandemic-induced pressures, but this cannot be verified by the data obtained.

Eighteen percent of industry employees reported working 50 or more hours per week, a figure that was double for scientists working in academia (36%).³

Finding enough hours in the day to maintain a career and personal life is a challenge as a scientist, regardless of whether you work in academia or industry.

However, a key difference between the two that does affect work-life balance, is that the current academic system of needing papers and funding to maintain a research career creates lots of pressure. If your research project fails, your career can fail too.

As an academic I always felt the pressure that if my experiments did not produce conclusive results, I needed to work twice as hard to turn things around. It was during these experimental rocky patches that I typically needed to work 50+ hours/week, just to keep my career on track. And for some of the more difficult projects I worked on, such weeks ended up being the norm. This is because it is papers and funding income that count on the academic job market (and for this you need positive results).

In industry however, it’s experience that counts most. The time spent obtaining experience in industry counts towards your next job, promotion, salary increase, job benefits etc.  Deliverables and results are expected too, but as long as you are able to perform in your role and gain exposure to as much as you can, it is this experience that is converted into currency on the job market.

For sure there are busy periods and time-dependent deadlines in the private sector that require intense periods of work, but I have found these to be the exception rather than the norm. For me at least, extended 50+ hour weeks are largely a thing of the past now.

Workplace Discrimination 

One of the most concerning findings from Nature’s 2021 Salary and Job Survey, was the number of respondents who reported workplace discrimination, harassment or bullying. Of which, there were twice as many in academia (30%) compared with those working in industry (15%).⁵ This may reflect the more positive feelings towards work highlighted by industry-based respondents compared with academics (see Career Progression section above).

This finding resonated, because I experienced discrimination in academia upon returning to work following maternity leave, after having my first child.

I was ‘welcomed’ back to my faculty position by a new head of department who openly discussed how difficult it was for women in a department like mine, because it operated using a ‘boys club.’ His words not mine. He went on to suggest that it would be challenging for someone like me to navigate such a workplace, and he was not wrong. I felt like an outsider, and I was.

I am happy to report that by the time I was returning to work after having my second child, I was now working in the private sector, and was welcomed back to work with open arms.

I would like to think I was just unlucky in my former career, and my experience was not representative of the wider academic community, but more a reflection of an outdated and toxic work environment in which I was unfortunate enough to have found myself. However, I find it disturbing that one third of academic survey respondents also reported workplace discrimination,⁵ suggesting that unfortunately discrimination appears to be commonplace in academia for marginalised groups. This desperately needs addressing.

Conclusions

The results of the 2021 Nature Salary and Job Survey represent a sobering read for academic employers. In many of the key areas highlighted in the survey (job satisfaction, salary, career progression, work-life balance, and workplace discrimination), industry employers appear to be providing superior working environments for scientists.

My own experience reflects this, and it likely results from a failure to improve working practices within academia, potentially caused by complacency of academic employers when faced with an oversized talent pool.

However, as increasing numbers of scientists begin to appreciate their value in the private sector, the default mode of researchers staying in academia will begin to shift. At this point, academic employers may find themselves needing to invest in improving employability to retain talent.

Although the survey demonstrates a number of serious issues of the working conditions for some scientists, I suspect most enjoy the science they do and find it interesting. The key for STEM professionals is to find working environments that can support their interest and love of science, whilst simultaneously fulfilling their professional goals – whether that is in academia or industry. 

If you want to learn more about academia-industry transitions, and working in pharma, subscribe to receive regular updates here.

References 

1. Nature 599, 331–332; 2021.
2. Nature 599, 519–521; 2021.
3. Nature 599, 703–705; 2021.
4. Nature 600, 177–171; 2021.
5. Nature 600, 8; 2021.
6. McConnell et al. eLife 7, e40189; 2018.