Question: How long do you need to be in university to be a scientist?

Susan Cartwright answered on 9 Jun 2020:

This rather depends on what kind of scientist you want to be. For most careers that can be described as “scientist”, you need a degree in a relevant science, which will take 3 or 4 years (up to 5 in Scotland, because Scottish students can enter university a year younger than English students). If you do well, you can then go and get a science-based job in industry. If you want to be a research scientist in a university, you will need to do a PhD after your first degree, which will typically take 3.5 to 4 years in the UK (usually longer in other countries).

However, there are other routes. Lab technician jobs in industry do not necessarily require a degree, and there are apprenticeship routes to science/engineering careers – for example, you can become an aerospace engineer through an apprenticeship route (it takes about as long as a degree – 4 years in this case – but it is based in a company and more focused on practical skills).

My father was an industrial chemist and never went to university (but that was in the 1950s when far fewer people did go to university, so it was probably easier then to get promoted from a technician to a scientist), My brother is a power station technician, and he never went to university either (he did an apprenticeship). If you don’t think university will suit you, there are other ways!