PhD students don’t need second jobs – they need paying above minimum wage

The minimum stipend for a UKRI-funded PhD student is currently £15,609. This will increase by 2.9% for the upcoming academic year, to £16,062. With the UK’s annual inflation rate currently at 9.4% and predicted to continue to rise, many graduate students face difficulties covering their costs of living. As of 20 July, nearly 9500 of them have signed an open letter to UKRI asking for next year’s stipend levels to be revised in line with inflation. UKRI have now responded to the letter, but have not yet committed to any funding increases.

But the Aries Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) at the University of East Anglia, UK, had another suggestion: instead of increasing stipends, why don’t PhD students get a second job? Suggestions include taking part in clinical trials, dog walking and fruit picking. In the wake of widespread criticism, the DTP has since apologised.

Many PhD students already have some form of secondary income. Mine was lab demonstrating. I only did a few sessions a year, yet even that caused issues. After a week where I’d spent about 10 hours teaching, my supervisor had a serious talk with me because he felt I hadn’t been in the lab enough recently. And yet gaining teaching experience was supposed to be an important part of my PhD training – I wasn’t doing it only for the money. (Incidentally, I think my PhD stipend was around £15,000 – the minimum for my first year in 2010 was £13,590. That 12 years later many PhD students earn barely more than I did is horrifying.)