Pharmacy: Career areas

After graduating, many pharmacy graduates work as community or hospital pharmacists. Some courses offer integrated professional training. Graduates from these courses can go straight into a career as a fully qualified pharmacist without the need to do a pre-registration year.

A 2012 HESA survey of 2011 graduates indicates that six months after graduation, 70% of pharmacy graduates were in full-time paid employment. A further 19% were combining work and study. This means that almost 90% of students who graduated in 2011 went straight into employment. Of these, over 97% took positions in the health sector. Examples of jobs recently obtained by pharmacy graduates include:

• locum (temporary replacement) pharmacist;
• resident pharmacist;
• hospital pharmacist;
• community pharmacist; and
• scientific classifier.

Pharmacy graduates also work in other areas such as:

• scientific research;
• technical support, analysis and investigation;
• patent work;
• healthcare;
• scientific writing and journalism;
• publishing;
• management;
• management consultancy;
• IT; and
• recruitment and training.

Complementary medicine and animal medicine are expanding areas in pharmacy.

Where are the jobs?

The majority of community pharmacists in the UK work in large retail chains or independent pharmacies of various sizes. Others are employed by small or medium-sized chain stores, GP surgeries or health centres.

Around 6,000 pharmacists work in UK hospitals. The majority of hospital pharmacists work for hospitals within The National Health Service (NHS) .

Qualified pharmacists can work as locum (temporary replacement) pharmacists, either on a self-employed basis or through an agency.

Pharmacy graduates are also employed by private sector organisations (e.g. pharmaceutical companies and food and drink companies) to work in areas such as research and development, quality assurance, marketing, sales and management.

For an insight into possible employment areas see:

• health and social care - made up of hospitals, private nursing homes, medical and dental practice work, ambulance transportation, complementary medicine and other human health activities across a range of organisations within the public, private and voluntary sectors.
• science and pharmaceuticals - offers opportunities to work in industry, hospitals, government agencies, research and development (R&D) and educational institutions. 

For further information on possibilities in other employment areas, see job sectors. 

Statistics are collected every year to show what HE students do immediately after graduation. These can be a useful guide but, in reality, because the data is collected within six months of graduation, many graduates are travelling, waiting to start a course, paying off debts, getting work experience or still deciding what they want to do. For further information about some of the areas of employment commonly entered by graduates of any degree discipline, check out What Do Graduates Do?  and your degree...what next?