Translating UK Academic Job Titles

As a US based PhD student, the UK provides another excellent arena to look for jobs. But to understand the job postings on the UK sites, one has to know what the titles actually mean.



Here's my rough understanding, and please take it with a grain of salt.

• Studentship = fellowship for being a PhD student
• Research assistantship = same as above, for pre-doctoral, although this usually involves part-time work on someone's project
• Research fellowship --- usually means a postdoctoral position, but not always. Check the listing.
• Teaching fellow --- approximately the same as VAP, but sometimes can be held by someone who is ABD
• Postdoctoral researcher -- same as in the US
• Lecturer -- usually looking for a junior faculty, approximately assistant professor
• Senior lecturer -- someone who's a few years in, and has a good record of publications
• Reader --- getting close to a high level associate professor (update 04/12/10: this could also be equivalent to a full professor position in a university that differentiates between full and chaired positions.)
• Professor -- a senior, high-level professor and very similar to the US sense.
  All prior positions for PhD holders are addressed as "Dr. so and so" rather than "Professor," as this is a specific job grade, not an honorific. And on the subject of titles, did you know that in the UK a surgeon is addressed as "Mr. so and so" due to historical conditions. I wonder if female surgeons get "Dr." or "Ms."...?
• Chaired professor --- this honorific is basically the same.

Before you get too excited, note a few key differences.

• Most calls want people who have finished the PhD, so you may have to "explain" if you are applying during the last year of your PhD, as is common in the US. (Less of a problem for postdocs, usually.) 
• (Update 04/12/10: As most people do a UK PhD in 3-5 years, you it is likely you will also have to explain why you took longer, usually in the interview stage. Be versed in your department and field's mean and median time to completion statistics. If you are fast, you can say so. If you are slow, you'd better have good reasons. As opposed to US jobs, I imagine this could be one situation where saying you went on leave or 1/2 time to have a baby won't be seen as a black mark.)
• Some disciplines have lower salaries relative to US positions, eg. finance.
• No tenure in the UK, and you typically work on 3 year contracts, although there is such a thing as 'effective tenure'
• Mandatory retirement age. This is currently at 65, although may go up by a few years, in a few years.
• The different pool of academics and somewhat different research focus areas may mean it would be difficult for you to come back to the US in the same exact discipline. Because this is field-specific, you should research this more for your area.  On the other hand, a focus on more of the top US journals would usually be a desirable thing for the UK department.

Also note that when they are doing hiring, they bring all the candidates in on the same day, and while you don't give your talk or interview in front of them, you may get to have lunch with your competition. While that could feel weird, you should just treat this like a conference situation. The upshot of their different hiring process is that they usually decide who to hire very quickly, and try to notify the top candidate that week. (If it takes some time, this probably means you were 2nd or 3rd choice. But hey, a job is a job.)