I’m debating whether or not to move up to a PhD after my master’s. I’m wondering what I could expect with a STEM PhD from a top Japanese university? I was hoping for 5mil a year for the highly skilled PR residency points. I want to know if this is a realistic expectation or not.
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What industry are you targeting?
It is possible, but job searching as a PhD is a whole another discussion.
5mil is pretty sit salary
If you have a PhD you’re probably going to do a couple of postdoc positions, salaries there are highly variable, anything between 3.5 and 5 million a year for the best part of a decade. If you land a permanent post then you could expect more. In either case it depends on your productivity and luck but you’re unlikely to get rich in STEM unless you are some superstar scientist.
Ehh you might wanna target companies which don’t care about age and such.
Caveat: everyone discouraged me to do a PhD in Japan so I ended up in US lol
5mil? You can get that with your masters and a non tenured position
yes totally realistic, as long as you can land a job offer in industrial sector. As someone says job hunting for phd is different story: you will hardly get the exact job as the research you are doing if there is no demand in the industry, so either giving up and become a generalist on a broader field, or stay as post-doc and earn 70% of your desired income. High earner phd friends of mine are usually doing Stem consultant or R&D project management, which requires lot of soft skills other than just number of published journals
May I suggest that you move up to PhD only if you’re passionate about your research topic?
I had masters with a 5 year work experience when I moved to Japan, in my company there aren’t any people with PhD and it is in part in semiconductor business
5 mil is realistic, if not on first year, maybe on second.
But do you enjoy research? If not, a master’s only will net you more money in industry than a PhD.
Not me. My buddy got his PhD and is making a killer 4m yen.
Japanese salaries are so shit. He’s actively planning on moving.
Hi. Did my PhD in Japan in Biotech and I do not recommend. The 4 years of PhD themselves were great, but it doesn’t make much sense in terms of salary you will get in the end. If you work for a company it’s probably not useful. You should consider it only if you want a career as a researcher (and be ready to move around Japan to get Post-doc positions).
Indeed in my case it was useful for the PR points, since a PhD in a Japanese university with a scholarship grants 50 points, but it’s only 10 points more than a master degree.
Most big companies have a different minimum salary for master degree and PhD degree, but the difference is not that high. Almost guaranteed you will get 5mil with a master very soon.
If you are willing to be a consultant with low work/life balance, it is definitely possible.
If you want to join a company you will start lower, but your background will allow you to be promoted faster and with some experience moving companies should be pretty easy if your salary does not go up as expected.
Big Pharma would be closer to ten M.
I worked with a guy who had a doctorate in physics who was in his early 40s, but he only made about 350,000 yen a month. With the bonus and overtime that might go up to 5 mil, but he was Japanese and had been working for 10 years or so after he graduated. Getting that kind of salary as a fresh graduate might be difficult.
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5mil is not a good salary bro!
I’m also interested in this kind of discussion, I am currently 23 and will have one year of research training from October.I will start my PhD at 25,graduating at 28 if things go well.
Age wise I won’t have any problems…but how will experience demand/work experience requirements tear me a new one?
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Depends on the STEM field you are in. There are a lot of startup these days. The interview process is very different than the normal Japanese companies and as far I have heard the pay is also not so bad. I guess individuals experience is different. Good luck.
Are you doing your PhD here in Japan? I’d imagine so, but just want to make sure.
Use that time to network your ass off. Attend conferences, events, etc. I am not sure what you are looking to do afterwards, but if it’s anything related to academics, build your resume with paper submissions, TA experiences, etc. Assistant Professor roles *can* pay what you are looking for.
If you want to join the workforce, well, that’s another story. Education is not as valued in Japan from what I understand. For example, an MBA salary post graduation here is not that much of a jump when we compare to the UK or the US.
So, looking to enter a company, not being a part of any graduating class, being older, with massive educational qualifications, can be tricky.
I don’t really think there is a real connection between a PhD degree and your salary. It largely is field dependent and you can get your answer more accurately by talking to your supervisor or senior grad students, or even better, people getting out of the same field now working in industry.
As a postdoc, though, you are looking at around 4M-5M yen in Japan which is really low to be honest, especially given how weak Japanese yen has been lately. If you get a fellowship to work in places like RIKEN, you could get above 6M. Working in industries is another story though.
Source: I am a postdoc.
I think you first need to bring the question to your academic supervisor. What do they think of that? They probably have a good sense of what the opportunities look like.
Generally speaking, if you’re considering working in academia, the issue is more “will there be any positions you can apply to?”. You will also likely not go from PhD graduate to 5mil/year.
If you’re considering the private sector, why bother with a PhD that may make it more difficult to hire you (because you’ll be older but not necessarily with more work experience etc)
a postdoc’s salary is about 400 thousand a month, so multiply that by 12 and you get close to your desired value.
phD jobs usually pay 5-6M entry so thats not the issue. The problem is actually getting the job, to put simply, phDs are not worth it in Japan and are not valued by most companies. This is because they will just lump you with all the other bachelor/masters for 新卒 positions where they will train you for scratch so why bother paying more for phD.
The places which do accept phDs as a separate selection track are usually the huge STEM companies with massive R&D departments. Some examples include Sony, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, etc. you get the idea.
In these special selection routes they will try to match you to a department where you research was relevant. So hopefully look into doing a topic that is of industry relevance to some extent. Also work on that Japanese, while they might accept a conversational level if you are a good enough candidate its astronomically better to be at least business/technical fluent (in your field) otherwise youre just gonna have a bad time.
As an example my friend (N3~N2 ish) did a phD about EV tech and now works in Nissan so that worked out for them.
Also the places that pay 5-6M are these big companies, smaller companies will pay less, far less even.
Depends on how many patents you have, how many and how impactful your publication are, and how well connected are you with the industry that you are aiming.
If you don’t have those 3, your job hunting may be challenging.
It is possible. I did my phd from a Japanese university and did 新卒 route last year, and my salary will be over 5M if you count all the bonus and stuff (joined a traditional large Japanese company). I recommend you to apply for R&D places that are similar to your university research.
I’m a postdoc here, but I got my PhD (also STEM) outside of Japan. 5M is probably upper end for a postdoc salary. I’ve also found the job market to be tough because all the industry positions want people with work experience in that specific job, not a PhD. Unsure if the job market for becoming a prof is better or not?
But my PhD was really fun so I don’t regret it! If you’re not doing research because you love it, then a PhD will be a tough 4 years though.
Postdoc salary is like 4 mil on a good day, that’s around $2000 a month after taxes, pension etc
Professor salary is a wee bit higher
The “S” is very different to the “TEM” in regards to PhD salaries. Most early-career post-doc salaries in science are 3.5-4 million yen, for which you need a PhD. Salaries outside of academia are higher (5mil should be doable), but you usually don’t need a PhD for those anyway.
If you are (and want to remain) a researcher, then a PhD is a necessary next step. If you’re not in science and/or don’t want to go into academia, then a PhD will have very little bearing on your salary.
Really depends on your field. But at least your university or lab should provide some resources or opportunities. At least my university has some kind of job fair just for the phd students. I do see a pattern where specific company is more willing to hire grads from a specific lab tho, it can be your supervisor’s good connection with this company, or they simply appreciate your research (I know someone from my university doing bio things got an offer more than 10M as a fresh grad). But then if you are doing phd for the sake of wage I wouldn’t suggest you doing that, especially in Japan. Just mastering out is fine here. Your phd is simply not appreciated and you will be underpaid if you couldn’t find the right employer.