Many pursue it, but few are aware that nobody assures you that you will get anything out of it (read more about the academic risks of PhDs).
In essence, more people than ever are doing PhDs around the globe (the trend seems particularly strong in China), but many pursue them because it appears to be the natural choice rather than out of conviction. This data stems from the Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED) supported by the National Science Foundation.
Of course, there are many opinions on this topic, and ultimately only you can (and should) decide.
The following is not exhaustive, but I hope it makes you aware of critical considerations that are rarely discussed:
Do You Really Need a PhD?
In fact, many industry positions do not require one.
Many PhDs will end up where others also end up. Take the numbers from this blog with a grain of salt – especially the average time to degree and the number of non-tenure-track academic positions seem very high. However, this graphic clearly shows that there are many career paths, and more than 90% of students eventually end up outside academia.
Therefore, if you have an idea of the direction you want to take, find out whether a PhD is required.
To give a few examples:
A PhD is definitely required if you want to become a professor, a senior research and development scientist, or an editor-in-chief.
A PhD may be preferred if you want to work in medical affairs or as a medical science liaison.
A PhD is generally not necessary if you want to go into marketing, sales, quality control, or science communication.
For positions like consulting, it really depends on the exact field you want to enter.
Join our regular webinars to get to know which career paths require a PhD. As a rule of thumb, a PhD is worth more if your role demands strategizing about, interpreting, or evaluating complex experimental results, or developing new technologies. In other words, when deep technical expertise in research or advanced experience in how science is actually conducted are required.
In some cases, especially research-related ones, you can take entry-level roles without a PhD, but you may need one to get promoted further.
However, be aware that many positions are filled by PhDs simply because so many people pursue them and the market is saturated, not because the degree is strictly required.
Sometimes a PhD Doesn’t Count
A PhD might seem like a no-brainer, as many people think that it can only increase your chances. That's not the case.
This data refers to entering - not staying. And still, it shows a clear trend. Eventually, over 90% of all students will end up in industry. Therefore, how a PhD is perceived there might be important to you. This data stems from the Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED).
There are two important caveats.
First, a PhD is often not counted as relevant work experience if you apply for positions outside of research.
In other words, it can mean three to six years spent without developing experience that is directly relevant to industry.
Although it is often claimed that PhD candidates develop organizational, resilience, and communication skills, these are usually insufficient to make a real impact when applying for senior roles in industry.
I like the idea of categorizing your skills as suggested by stockholmresilience.org. If you decide to pursue a PhD, make sure you find a supportive environment. Reflect on your preferences and the skills you want to develop. In the right setting, it can feel like being paid to conduct exciting research while building the skills and track record needed to continue that work throughout your life. However, if your goals, values, or environment are misaligned, a PhD may cost you several years, significant stress, and the opportunity to develop the skills and experiences needed for your true career path. It's not just what you can theoretically do, but how well you can do it.
If you truly want to prepare for a position outside of research, relevant training, certifications, internships, or even volunteer positions can be far more meaningful.
And Sometimes It Even Hurts You
At first, in some cases, the title may require companies to pay you more.
On average, the industry pays better. The data on the left is from 2011 and the right from 2021 but both are from the US. As a bachelor’s or master’s student, it can be difficult to appreciate the importance of factors such as income or job security. Universities often encourage idealism, but believe me, once you start thinking about supporting a family, money and job security play a much different role. Money is never everything, but it matters.
Second, you might be considered too old, too specialized, or too senior for trainee positions.
Finally, spending several years in academia may lead you to adopt academic values and priorities.
The problem is that values such as novelty, curiosity, and personal intellectual development are often secondary in industry.
Moreover, they can become a hindrance if they blind you to industry priorities such as efficiency, effectiveness, and measurable impact.
A PhD Is Riskier Than People Expect
Even if you are certain that you want to continue as a researcher in academia or industry, a PhD must still be chosen carefully.
Although rarely discussed, a PhD will only teach you properly if you have a supportive mentor, a feasible project, and a sufficiently healthy work environment.
As indicated by this analysis (that probably shows similar distributions today, just with a higher count of "nothing" probably), what many overlook is that even to stay in academia, you will need to find a postdoc in your field (you are expected to have developed the necessary skills) and later have a sufficient number of high-ranking publications. A suboptimal PhD will make all of that harder. My personal take: it may not be that science or laboratory work is wrong for you - it may simply be that the academic system is not the right fit.
Without these, many PhD students learn how to cope with problems rather than develop best practices.
Others develop themselves well by building a project from scratch but pay a heavy mental toll and might end up with fewer publications and a smaller professional network than needed to succeed.
It Will Be Mentally Taxing
While the work itself can be exciting, you should be prepared for long hours in the lab, frustration due to failed experiments, rejected manuscripts, and limited structure - even in great environments.
Please consult the publication by Bergvall et al. for more detailed information and the exact methodology used to arrive at these numbers for Swedish PhD students. In essence, most PhD students report struggling with anxiety, and many also experience depressive symptoms. As these graphs show, this may also lead to adverse physical effects.
This means it is less about intelligence or skill and more about maintaining your motivation.
Less often than expected, it’s about big breakthroughs or exciting discussions. More often, it involves exploratory trial and error, repetition, and searching for patterns in noisy data.
The issue is that this mental exhaustion can blind you to the exciting opportunities out there.
In Summary
The main challenge is that a PhD often feels like the easiest option.
You already understand how academia works, and getting into a PhD program is often easier than securing an industry position.
For that reason, it can feel safer - but this sense of safety is often a cognitive bias.
Of course, it often takes six months to a year before experiments begin to work reliably. But once again, your environment and long-term prospects are just as important as early experimental results when deciding whether a particular program makes sense for you. If you don’t know where to apply, here are three approaches: A) What would your “enemies” have to admit you are good at? B) If someone gifted you five years of your life and money were not a consideration, what would you do? C) If, in ten years, someone made a documentary about a friend of yours in which you appear, how do you envision yourself? What role do you play?
The key question is whether a PhD truly contributes to your desired career path.
In the right environment, a PhD can be an amazing experience, preparing you to excel in research. However, it can also be an investment of several years that basically just wears you out.
When thinking about a PhD, try to distance yourself from the need for safety and from doubts about your future. Ignore the anxiety and approach the decision as a purely professional one.
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