Salaries and opportunities for advancement

Statistics enjoys a status comparable with other scientific disciplines in the pharmaceutical industry. The salaries and benefits for statisticians are very competitive with statistical posts in other industries.

Statisticians and statistical programmers generally start their careers working as parts of teams under more experienced statisticians so as to learn the job, but it is likely that they will soon be taking on key roles within important cross-functional project teams themselves.

Companies have different career structures. These can allow you to further your career through higher-level statistical work or through management assignments. Indeed, some pharmaceutical statisticians become very senior general managers of their companies.

Many companies are international, so there are opportunities for temporary or permanent employment abroad.