Continuing professional development

The pharmaceutical industry gives very strong emphasis to continual learning. New statistical techniques are always evolving, and there are often major advances in statistical computing. Pharmaceutical statisticians and statistical programmers therefore need to keep their technical knowledge up to date. They also need to keep aware of more general developments within the industry, which is at the forefront of many sectors of research and development.

Many internal and external training courses are available, and in general there would be strong encouragement for you to avail yourself of them.

Your professional work as a statistician might well benefit from the professional qualification of Chartered Statistician (CStat), which would give you a professional affiliation with the Royal Statistical Society.

You should also consider joining the organisation Statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry (PSI), which seeks to promote good statistical practice in the industry and to provide a forum for discussion of relevant statistical matters. It organises many meetings and training courses.