UK PhD students’ academic career hopes out of step with job market

Surely this is no surprise as in most walks of life outside academia, a PhD does not offer any significant career advantage. Therefore, most of us complete them for reasons of interest and to be challenged. In my own field of engineering, there seem to be no other reasons to complete a research degree so I hardly ever supervise a home student.

Does research in Universities (and everywhere else) need more research? Budgets for research continue to increase and more people are doing it but how valuable is it? Publicly (tax payer) funded research needs to "prove" the money being spent benefits society in comparison to other publicly funded activity. Would the money spent on University research be better spent on building more and better housing? How is the money spent on medical research to be evaluated with funds spent on social science research or economic research? The impact of Covid 19 is likely to result in the Government taking a much closer look at the perceived benefits of research and the public too, if we are to be faced with cuts and higher taxes.