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Research article

First Employment of British Pharmacology Graduates

Michael Hollingsworth¹ and Anthony Markham²

¹Faculty of Life Sciences, The University of Manchester, ²Sunderland Pharmacy School, School of Health, Natural and Social Sciences, University of Sunderland

Date received: 27/03/2006     Date accepted: 29/09/06

A survey was conducted in UK Universities to identify the employment of pharmacology graduates (BSc, MSc and PhD) 6 months after graduation in 2003. The aim was to provide data for the British Pharmacological Society (BPS) so they could offer advice to interested bodies and to University staff for careers information. 85% of 52 Universities surveyed responded. Data were collected on 705 BSc, 36 MSc and 96 PhD graduates. With the 100 intercalating medical, dental and veterinary students excluded, the proportion of undergraduates undertaking further training was 36% (BSc), 34% (MSc) and 4% (PhD). Employment that required pharmacological knowledge was followed by 18% (BSc), 18% (MSc) and 67% (PhD). Graduates going into non-pharmacological employment were 18% (BSc), 3% (MSc) and 2% (PhD). The remaining graduates had either gone abroad, were unplaced and seeking employment, unplaced but not seeking employment, or their employment status was unknown. A significant proportion of the pharmacology graduates made use of their pharmacological education or were likely to following further training. Relatively few graduates (BSc or PhD) went into industry in the laboratory. Repeated surveys will enable trends in the number of graduates and their employment to be followed.

Introduction

There is a paucity of information on the number of students undertaking courses or post-graduate education in pharmacology and their employment in Great Britain. The British Pharmacological Society (BPS) is frequently asked for such information by government, professional bodies, the pharmaceutical industry or its members. It is also useful for academic staff within UK Universities to have data on the employment of such graduates to offer careers advice to current students.

The last survey of graduate employment was conducted in 1983 and reported in 1986 (Bakhle et al, 1986). Much has changed in the University sector since 1983. Many new undergraduate and MSc courses in pharmacology have started (and some closed) and opportunities for post-graduate studies have grown. There has been subsuming of pharmacology Departments within Schools and Faculties. Much has also changed in the employment sector with mergers of large pharmaceutical companies, the growth of biotechnology companies, enlargement of regulatory bodies, and greater diversity of employment opportunities (Greener, 2001).

The Universities & Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS, 2005) lists all current undergraduate courses but it is not possible to easily obtain data on the numbers of students on pharmacology courses. The Higher Education Statistical Agency (HESA) routinely collects data from graduates on their employment 6 months after graduation and that data are fed back to the graduates’ University. However, collated data on, for example, students undertaking pharmacology at all universities are not available centrally. The approach adopted in this study to investigate pharmacology graduates could be used for other specialised Bioscience subjects.

Methods

A questionnaire was designed based on that used by the Biochemical Society (Withnall, 2005) and was piloted with Professor Peter Roberts (Bristol University) and Dr John Wilkinson (Hertfordshire University). The questionnaire asked for details of the institution, Department or School, contact person, titles of BSc and MSc courses and employment of BSc, MSc and PhD graduates. A first degree was defined as one where the content followed the core curriculum of the BPS (British Pharmacological Society, 2006). The Masters classification included MPhil and MRes. A pharmacological PhD was defined as one where the host department considered there was a substantial pharmacological component to the training. For each type of employment examples were given.

All graduates were sent a form by HESA approximately 6 months after their graduation ceremony (whether July or December) and asked about their employment at that time. Graduates who do not respond by post were followed up by phone. HESA collated the information and sent it the host University of the graduates. Institutions were advised that they should have this information on the employment of their graduates from their University Careers service. In addition, they were asked to supplement the data by their own local knowledge, so numbers should be greater than HESA figures

The BPS survey questionnaire was sent to 52 Universities where it was known or thought possible that they run a BSc/MSc pharmacology course or taught pharmacology at PhD level. Questionnaires were sent to all members of the Committee of Heads of Pharmacology Departments, to a contact person on other pharmacology courses listed on the UCAS web site (http://www.ucas.ac.uk) and to personal contacts of the authors. Questionnaires were sent out between October 2004 and February 2005. Where a University did not respond, the contact person in the institution was telephoned by A.M.

Results

44 of the 52 Universities contacted responded, a return rate of 85%. There were 26 Institutions that had current BSc and/or MSc pharmacology courses with graduates in 2003 (Table 1). The titles of the courses are given in Table 2. A few Institutions said that they ran BSc courses that had a pharmacological component but did not fulfil the criteria of following the BPS Core Curricula and so their data were excluded. Five institutions had recently instituted BSc Pharmacology courses, but without graduates in 2003, or were anticipating doing so very shortly (Table 1 and Table 2). Some institutions had several different courses.

Table 1 Universities that responded to the survey

The first employment of the graduates is given in Table 3. Data were collected on a total of 705 BSc, 36 MSc and 96 PhD/DPhil graduates. There were 100 intercalating medical, dental and veterinary students who joined the final year of BSc courses and returned to their professional training. They were excluded from further analysis. It is noticeable that a high proportion of ex-BSc students (219 graduates, 36%) went on to do further training. Of these graduates, 147 did further pharmacological training. A significant proportion of MSc graduates and a small proportion of PhD graduates had further training (34% and 4% respectively). Conversely the proportion of graduates who used their pharmacological knowledge in their employment was much higher for PhD graduates (67%) than for BSc (18%) or MSc (18%) graduates. Of the overall total of 737 graduates (BSc, MSc & PhD), only 42 (6%) were employed within the pharmaceutical industry in a laboratory-based research role. There were the same number (42, 6%), in non-laboratory

Table 2 Titles of BSc and MSc courses that had graduates in 2003

employment that needed pharmacological knowledge, such as sales, marketing, drug information, data drug monitoring and medical publishing. 107 BSc graduates (18%) were in employment that did not require pharmacological knowledge but few MSc or PhD graduates in that type of employment. The numbers of graduates abroad or unplaced (whether seeking employment or not) was small (1-3%). There was a sizeable minority of graduates for whom the host Institutions could not provide information on employment.

Table 3 Employment of Pharmacology graduates six months after graduation in 2003

There were 100 intercalating medical, dental and veterinary students who graduated in pharmacology.

Discussion

This study is the first to report on the employment of UK pharmacology graduates since 1986 (Bakhle et al, 1986). It is appropriate at the outset to consider whether the data generated is reliable.

Reliability of the methodology

Firstly, has an appropriate definition for each category of graduate been used? A search of the UCAS website using the term “Pharmacology” revealed 123 BSc courses for entry in 2006 (Universities & Colleges Admissions Service, 2005). This number is greater than the number of institutions offering pharmacology education since several places offer a variety of pharmacological courses with different titles (e.g. Pharmacology; Pharmacology with Industrial Experience, Pharmacology & Physiology). Alternatively, there are some courses that have a significant component of pharmacology but are really more broadly-based biology courses so perhaps could not be included. Finally, there are courses that would not be considered pharmacological in nature (e.g. Herbal Medicine). The definition used (followed the Core Curriculum of the BPS) was considered to be the most precise. Intercalating medical, dental and veterinary students were excluded from the detailed analysis as they usually take only one year of a pharmacology course before returning to their professional course. Such students frequently spend a substantial proportion of their year doing pharmacology and so would have followed a good part, but not all, of the Core Curriculum. The MSc courses were clearly defined by their title and content. The most difficult category to delineate was a Pharmacology PhD. At the time of the previous study (Bakhle et al, 1986) it was possible to define such graduates based on the fact that they were doing a PhD within a pharmacology department. Many such departments have now, however, become subsumed within Schools or Faculties. It was therefore felt to be more appropriate to define such students by the nature of the research project rather than location. Such definition had, of necessity, to be left to the host Institution and in consequence some graduates may have been included incorrectly or missed if the host Institution was not contacted.

Secondly, we were concerned to contact as many Institutions offering Pharmacology as possible. The Institutions were cross-checked by three methods: membership of the Committee of Heads of Pharmacology Departments, the UCAS website and personal contacts. As a consequence, it was considered that complete coverage had been achieved. The 85% return implies some loss of data but is nonetheless a very representative sample.

A third question concerned the accuracy of the data on the employment of graduates as provided via HESA. The data sent to Institutions by HESA is only as accurate as the information supplied by the individual graduates. Since, however, HESA categorises employment into more specific types than used in this present study, we can be confident that the broader categories used here are accurate. Staff in Institutions were asked to subdivide the categories further and supplement with missing data. The use of examples aided classification and there were only 4 doubtful classifications out of a total of 837 graduates.

Therefore, overall it was felt that the methods used were largely reliable. If similar methods are used on a regular basis it is anticipated that reliability would increase as the organisers of the survey and participants refine their methods.

Course and employment data

The total number of BSc graduates in Pharmacology (including intercalating students for comparison purposes) has increased from 527 in 1983 (Bakhle et al, 1986) to 705 in 2003, an increase of 34%. Over the same period the number of Biology students in the UK increased from 901 to 3,240, an increase of 356% (Higher Education Statistical Agency, 2004; University Grants Committee, 1984). There were 17 single subject BSc Pharmacology courses in 1983 (Bakhle et al, 1986), which had grown to 22 in 2003. The relatively small increase in pharmacology BSc graduates and courses may be in part a consequence of the greater growth in broadly-based biological degrees, such as biomedical sciences. Bakhle et al (1986) stated “Pharmacology training now takes two forms, either Single of Joint Honours B.Sc. courses…. “. It is evident today (Table 2) that there is a greater diversity of courses, where it is possible to take pharmacology with many other subjects. The beneficial corollary of this situation is that there are many more graduates nowadays whose courses, e.g. biomedical sciences, had included a component of pharmacology but would not be considered pharmacologists. It was evident from conversations with staff in a few Institutions that there were courses due to close soon, but the survey indicated there were 5 courses that had just started or were about to start. Clearly the position is dynamic and warrants monitoring.

The number of MSc/M.Phil graduates has declined from 57 in 1983 to 36 in 2003 as has the number of PhD/D.Phil students from 143 in 1983 to 96 in 2003 (Bakhle et al, 1986). The former decrease probably reflects a reduction in the number of courses, although the actual number of courses was not stated in the 1986 study. The latter fall may be a real decline or one of definition as many PhDs are more broadly based now than they were in the 1980s.

Direct comparison of the employment characteristics of the 2003 and 1983 cohorts of graduates (Bakhle et al, 1986) is complicated by differences in the methods of categorisation of both employment and graduates’ courses. It appears, nevertheless, that having excluded the intercalating BSc students, a higher proportion of BSc graduates went on to further pharmacological training in 2003 (36%) compared with 1983 (21%, Bakhle et al, 1986). The proportion of BSc pharmacology graduates doing further pharmacological training (36%) is higher than the proportion of BSc biochemistry doing further biochemical training (27.5%; Withnall, 2005). This proportion of graduates in further training is higher than the proportions for biological scientists in general, about 20% (Pearson & Perryman, 2001a, b).

There appears to have been a marked decline in the proportion of BSc graduates being employed within the pharmaceutical industry, down from 15% in 1983 (Bakhle et al, 1986) to 11% in 2003 (laboratory plus non-laboratory based positions). This fall continued a trend that had already occurred between 1971 (25%, Bakhle et al, 1974) and 1983. This change could reflect a combination of a decline in industrial posts due to mergers in the pharmaceutical industry plus a growth of alternative employment options. Clearly only a small proportion of current BSc graduates go directly into the pharmaceutical industry, which perhaps has implications for the extent to which the needs of the pharmaceutical industry should be matched by course design (Hughes et al, 1997). In 1983, 14% of BSc graduates went into the combined category of University/School teaching, research posts in Universities/hospitals and administration/business (Bakhle et al, 1986). The equivalent in 2003 was 30% of BSc graduates, excluding those students re-entering professional courses. This increase again probably reflects the increased diversity of alternative employment. Some of the jobs will have directly used the pharmacological knowledge and skills but other jobs would mainly use the more generic scientific skills.

A pleasingly small proportion of graduates reported themselves as unemployed and seeking employment (BSc — 2%, MSc — 3%, PhD — 1%), which was lower than BSc and PhD graduates of all disciplines for 2003 (BSc — 7.0%, PhD — 3.7%; Higher Education Statistical Agency, 2005).

A satisfyingly high proportion (67%) of PhD graduates were in employment that used their pharmacological knowledge six months after graduation
(Table 3), which is similar to the position in 1983 (58%; Bakhle et al, 1986). Only a small number of the 2003 PhD graduates (11) had gone directly into industry as a larger number (41) were working in research institutes or institutes of higher education. For both post-graduates and undergraduates, industry is not the major employer. It is, of course, likely that some of those post-graduates would go into industry after post-doctoral employment.

This study gives a snapshot of the pharmacology courses and employment of pharmacologists who graduated in 2003. A similar study is being conducted on 2004 graduates and will be repeated on an annual basis, which will enable trends with time to be identified. The methodologies used here could be adopted to identify employment history of graduates in other Bioscience disciplines.

Communicating Author

Dr. Anthony Markham, Sunderland Pharmacy School, School of Health, Natural and Social Sciences, University of Sunderland, Sunderland, SR1 3SD, UK.
E-mail: tony.markham@sunderland.ac.uk, tel: 0191-515-2613.

Acknowledgements

We thank Dr Mike Withnall, Biochemical Society, for permission to base our survey on their questionnaire, Mrs Sarah-Jane Stagg and colleagues in the BPS offices for help in conducting the survey and colleagues in Universities for responding.

References

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Bakhle, Y.S., Morton, I.K.M., Straughan, D.W. and Webster, R.A. (1986) Third report on the organization of pharmacology in Great Britain. British Journal of Pharmacology, 87 463-474

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http://www.employment-studies.co.uk/pubs/report.php?id=374c (accessed 8 August 2005)

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Withnall, M. (2005) Annual survey of UK biochemistry graduate employment 2003. http://www.biochemistry.org/education/survey/default.htm (accessed 8 August, 2005)

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