Question: How can I become a professor, like you? Incredible job!!!

Christina Pagel answered on 7 Jan 2020:

There’s a pretty defined career path to becoming a professor actually and it goes:

1) Do a PhD (postgraduate 3 year research degree) – in science & maths, these are usually funded (including living costs) and are competitive so you have to apply

2) After a PhD get research experience as a postdoctoral research associate / fellow (commonly called a Postdoc) – these are funded positions working on someone else’s research project (often a professor’s!) for between 2-4 years each. You’ll be earning between £30K – £45K depending on seniority. These are fun, hard work and really productive – where you learn what doing research really involves and write a lot of articles for academic publication, give talks, build networks of collaborators…

3) Get a lectureship at a university (like getting tenure in the US). Basically these are permanent positions at a university and you will be expected to teach about 50% of your time with the rest spent on research. You are also expected now to get funding to do you own research projects (and hire your own postdocs and train your own PhD students!). If you get lots of funding you can do less teaching if that’s what you want.

4) Once you are a lecturer, there is a pretty standard promotion process through the grades from lecturer -> senior lecturer (being phased out now) -> associate professor -> professor. It takes about 6-15 years. To become a professor you need to prove that you have an international research reputation and can attract funding to do your own research. There is also a teaching track to being a professor but I know less about that.

Being a prof has its advantages, but once you are a prof you have a lot of administrative duties and much less time to spend on actual research – instead you normally run your own research group of PhDs and postdocs, directing the type and content of the work but doing less of it. There are pluses and minuses to both!