Very few PhD graduates will ever become full professors, and understanding this early is one of the most empowering shifts you can make in your career thinking.[1] When I wrote the introduction to Career Options in the Life Sciences: Guide Research for Your Path Beyond Academia, this was exactly the point I wanted to make clear: the system is not designed so that “most” of you end up as professors.[2]
How Many Actually Become Professors?
When I started digging into the data for my book, I was struck by how far reality is from the story many of us were told as PhD students.[3] Several large analyses and reports converge on the same uncomfortable pattern: only a small minority of PhDs will ever hold a professorship.
- A famous flow diagram from a Royal Society–related analysis shows that roughly 0.45% of science PhD graduates eventually become full professors, and only a few percent secure long‑term academic research posts at all.[4]
- Other estimates, depending on country and discipline, typically fall somewhere between 3–10% of PhDs eventually becoming professors, often after many years of temporary contracts and postdocs.[5]
- In many STEM fields, only about 10–20% of postdocs manage to transition into tenure‑track or permanent faculty positions, even after very strong publication records.[6]
When you put these numbers next to the expectations many students carry into their PhD, you can see the problem: the “default” career story simply does not match how the system actually behaves.[7]
Why This Is Not About You (But About The System)
Early in my own career, I also believed that if you worked hard, published enough, and “wanted it badly,” a professorship would somehow materialize at the end of the tunnel.[7] Over time, through supervising students, talking to hiring committees, and reading the data, it became obvious that the bottleneck is structural, not personal.
Here is what I mean by that:
- One professor can supervise many PhD students and postdocs, but only one professor is needed to replace them when they retire; mathematically, the system cannot turn most PhDs into professors.[8]
- Universities have expanded PhD programs much faster than they have created stable positions, so there is a chronic oversupply of highly trained researchers competing for a relatively fixed pool of academic jobs.[3]
- Hiring is highly concentrated: analyses of faculty networks show that a small group of elite universities trains a large fraction of professors, creating a prestige bottleneck that is difficult to overcome no matter how good you are.[9]
Understanding this changed how I talk to PhDs and postdocs: if you do not become a professor, that is not an individual failure; it is the statistically expected outcome of a system that produces far more candidates than positions.[1]
How This Realization Shaped My Book
In the introduction of Career Options in the Life Sciences, I start from this uncomfortable truth: most of you will not become professors, and that is okay [2]. The real risk is not “failing” to get a chair; the real risk is spending 10–15 years optimizing for a single, low‑probability outcome while ignoring dozens of other paths where you could thrive.
When I wrote the book with Eric Rieux, I had three concrete goals for you as a reader.[10]
- Help you see the full landscape of careers in life sciences: pharma, biotech, CROs, med‑tech, regulatory agencies, data science, consulting, science communication, and more.[11]
- Show you how to translate your academic skills into language and value that industry, regulators, and other sectors recognize: project management, stakeholder communication, quality and compliance, quantitative analysis.[12]
- Give you practical tools (questions, exercises, examples) to research your options, test hypotheses about roles, and make an evidence‑based transition instead of drifting until a contract ends.[13]
The message of the introduction can be summarized in one line: if only a minority will become professors, then training and mentoring must be designed from the start to support strong outcomes both inside and outside academia.[3]
If The Odds Are Low, What Should You Do?
Let me speak directly to you as if we were sitting in my office after a lab meeting. You are talented, you are committed, and you have already invested years into this path. What can you do now, given these numbers?
1. Redefine What “Success” Means For You
If your only definition of success is “professor,” you have set yourself up to judge 90–95% of possible outcomes as failure.[5] That is neither fair nor rational.
Ask yourself:
- What kind of problemsdo you want to work on (disease areas, technologies, methods)?
- What kind of constraintsare you willing to accept (mobility, long hours, funding pressure, job security)?
- What level of impact and stabilitydo you need in the next 5–10 years of your life?
Many people discover that their ideal mix of science, autonomy, location, salary, and stability actually fits better in industry, regulation, or hybrid roles than in a classic professorship.[12]
2. Make Career Exploration Part Of Your Research Project
Treat career exploration like you treat an experiment: you gather data, test hypotheses, and iterate.[13]
Concrete actions you can start this month:
- Talk to three people outside academia whose roles sound even remotely interesting to you (e.g., MSLs, clinical project managers, regulatory experts, data scientists). Ask them how they got there, what they actually do, and what they wish they had known earlier.[14]
- Audit your own CV and convert your tasks into competencies: instead of “I worked with mouse models,” write down what that means—planning complex studies, complying with regulations, coordinating teams, troubleshooting, analyzing high‑dimensional data.[7]
- Identify one skill gap that shows up repeatedly in job ads you find attractive (for example, regulatory affairs, programming, data visualization, or project management), and commit to a course or project that directly targets that gap.[13]
This is exactly the type of structured “guide research” approach I promote in the book: you systematically collect information on careers in the life sciences instead of relying on hearsay or fear.[10]
3. Build Optionality Instead Of A Single Track
One of the biggest mistakes I see is the “all‑in” academic bet: everything is optimized for the hope of a faculty job, and nothing is invested in alternative options.[15] Given the probabilities, this is like putting your entire retirement savings into one volatile stock.
Instead, you can:
- Continue to build a strong academic profile while simultaneously building assets that are legible outside academia (industry collaborations, internships, side projects, certificates, networking).[12]
- Make sure every year of your PhD or postdoc increases your option value in at least two or three future directions, not just one.[13]
- Use your thesis, publications, and conference talks as signals of your ability to handle complex projects, not just as tickets for the next academic contract.[7]
In the book, I call this “designing for multiple exits”: you remain genuinely competitive in academia for as long as that makes sense, but at any point you can pivot into a non‑academic role without starting from zero.[16]
Why I Keep Coming Back To This Message
The most painful conversations I have are with brilliant scientists who realize, after their second or third postdoc, that the numbers were never in their favor and that nobody told them early enough.[7] I do not want you to be in that position.
The point of stressing “how many make it to professorship” is not to scare you away from academia; it is to give you informed consent about the system you are operating in.[1] If you still choose to pursue a professorship with full awareness of the odds, that is a courageous and valid decision. If you choose to pivot into industry, regulation, or another path, that is equally valid—and statistically far more common.[17]
Career Options in the Life Sciences exists to make that pivot easier, more structured, and less lonely.[10] Use it as a workbook: highlight sections, map roles, test ideas, and build a concrete transition plan that reflects who you are and where you want to go.
If you take only one thing from this blog post, let it be this: your value as a scientist is not determined by whether you become a professor. It is determined by how you use your training, your curiosity, and your judgment to solve meaningful problems—in whatever environment allows you to do that best.[12][3]
References
[1] Gender Bias Impacts Top-Merited Candidates - PMC https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8141636/
[2] Career options in the life sciences : guide research for your path ... https://unige.swisscovery.slsp.ch/discovery/fulldisplay/alma991012332828205502/41SLSP_UGE:VU1
[3] Biomedical PhD Education – An International Perspective https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/bcpt.12063
[4] Career Progression in Academic Science from the Royal ... http://thebeautifulstars.blogspot.com/2011/08/career-progression-in-academic-science.html
[5] Should I become a professor? Success rate 3% !smartsciencecareer.com › become-a-professor https://smartsciencecareer.com/become-a-professor/
[6] Estimation of probabilities to get tenure track in academia https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/3TQTec6FKcMSRBT2T/estimation-of-probabilities-to-get-tenure-track-in-academia
[7] A survey of working conditions within biomedical research ... https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5627577/
[8] How Many PhDs Stay in Academia? — TurningScience https://www.turningscience.com/blog/how-many-phds-stay-in-academia
[9] 80% of professors at Ph.D.-granting universities attended ... https://www.highereddive.com/news/Berkeley-Harvard-Michigan-Wisconsin-Stanford-most-faculty/633842/
[10] Career Options in the Life Sciences: Guide Research for Your Path ... https://www.vitalsource.com/ie/products/career-options-in-the-life-sciences-guide-stefano-gaburro-eric-rieux-v9783031735653
[11] Career Options In The Life Sciences: Guide Research For Your Path ... https://www.hoepli.it/libro/career-options-in-the-life-sciences-guide-research-for-your-path-beyond-academia/9783031735646.html
[12] Career Options for Scientists. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5585847/
[13] A Career Preparation Course for Biomedical Science Majors Focused on Skills for Diverse Career Paths https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10117091/
[14] Life Sciences Career Exploration https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3164560/
[15] Guide to Academic Research Career Development https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5580859/
[16] Springer Career Options in the Life Sciences: Guide Research for ... https://www.galaxus.ch/en/s18/product/career-options-in-the-life-sciences-guide-research-for-your-path-beyond-academia-eric-rieux-stefano--57103088
[17] What Percentage Of PhDs Stay In Academia? PhD Graduates Career ...academiainsider.com › what-percentage-of-phds-stay-in-academia https://academiainsider.com/what-percentage-of-phds-stay-in-academia/