Doctor wants to become investment banker (UK)
Hey, I'm looking for some advice. I'm a 26 yo Manchester Medical School graduate (2019) and I want to make a career move out of medicine and into high finance.
I have an excellent academic track record, but unfortunately no real work experience or extracurriculars within finance or related fields.
I am looking at applying to 1 year MSc Finance programmes for this year (21-22) , with the hopes of securing a graduate job within investment banking. I have an offer from Nottingham, and am waiting for a reply from Warwick.
My question is - how realistic are my chances?
Why finance? I think the best way to gauge how interested you are in the field is to enroll in CFA level 1 and to pass the exam. The same way movies and tv shows exaggerate how fun and interesting life of a doctor is, life of people in finance is actually pretty boring and lonely. CFA level 1 will teach you about the different fields in finance, as well as help bring you up to speed on the basics. You can still do your job while also studying for the exam. If you pass and you're still interested in finance, the exam will help you break into the field as it shows employers you're serious about the move.
Someone with your skillset, as long as they show they are serious about moving into finance (you do this by passing CFA level 1), can break in pretty easily within medicine/pharma/ industries your knowledge is relevant in.
If you do CFA level 1 and you love the material,
I want to work in finance primarily because there is a much higher lifetime earning potential there than in medicine. The pay for doctors of all grades in the UK is garbage and although I enjoy a lot of aspects of my work, the fact is that I will never be able to afford the lifestyle I want for myself and my family if I pursue medicine/surgery.
I also do have a genuine interest in finance and can see myself doing the work of an IB analyst and doing it well. Inhumane hours are not foreign to me, and I honestly enjoy the feeling of working an intense schedule, provided the reward (financial or otherwise) is propotional.
I had assumed to do CFA you would need industry experience, but I was wrong. This is definitely something I will be strongly considering doing within the next year.
Assuming I attain this qualification, what kind of roles do you think I could pursue within the pharma/medicine industry?
Interesting. Doctors in the US make so much money. Why not just go into private practice instead? Going into finance just for the money in my opinion is not that great of an idea. Unless you're at a hedge fund where there is very little job stability, in most finance roles you'll be making good money but not that much. Characters like Jordan Belfort from Wolf of Wall Street are few and far in between. I'm sure after 10-20 years of experience as a doctor, you'll be making amazing money, and have great stability on top of that.
Best of luck to you, but I strongly don't recommend going into finance just for the money as the money is good but not as great as you make it seem.
>Why not just go into private practice instead?
I will tell you why. Firstly, you have to specialise in a field that has a high private earnings potential, and these all have very long training programmes (7-8 years at least, and that's if it all goes smoothly, which it won't, because they're uber competitive at every stage of progression). At the end of your training, you are presented with your Certificate of Completion of Training (CCT), which entitles you to work as a consultant (attending). I'll be mid-30's at that stage, and would have been on £50k GBP for that entire time. Except even at this stage, I wouldn't be able to start private practice, because I'd have to establish myself first/ get a reputation in order to receive referrals. So my only option would be to work as an NHS consultant, for the amazing prize salary of £70k after 15 years of gruelling training, working poor hours, being forced to uproot and relocate myself every year/two years to a new city, and being paid like ass.
After 3-5 years working as an NHS consultant (I am now 40ish), I can begin operating a decent private practice. Except most (aka all) private hospitals and practices require you to hold an NHS consultant position in order to work privately (for legal purposes) - so you'll never be able to work full time private, unless you open your own practice or have an insane reputation honed over decades. OK, so I'm now working as an NHS consultant, and supplementing my income with private work - how much will I make? Dependent on specialty, I would make £200-300k/yr , based on a 60hr working week including evenings, nights, and weekends. Meanwhile all my banker friends would have NWs in the millions by this stage in life and probably looking at retirement soon, while I'm only just hitting my earnings peak. A guy I went to high school with (who I outperformed academically, btw) is on £250k now as a 27 year old, working in private equity.
This is a shit deal. I wish somebody sat me down and showed me these numbers before I went to medical school instead of telling me "hurrr doctor money good". I was such a fucking idiot.
I know that money is not everything. I am not looking for a Jordan Belfort kind of lifestyle, nor am I looking for an 'easy' way to become rich. I have sacrificed all my life for good grades and top academic performance and I expected the reward to be a standard of living significantly above the average - except I won't get that in medicine. In London, this kind of income basically puts you in the working class. I will not give my working years to the NHS for such a cheap price, fuck them.
As far as master's go, think WSO wisdom stipulates there are only a few worthwhile masters to go for. See Pan European Monkey's thread which is really helpful on what uni's to target (don't think warwick and nottingham are worth it).
https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/20-most-frequently-asked-questions-london-edition?page=0
Secondly, have you considered applying for MBB consulting? I've seen a few medics who have moved after their f1/f2 years into MBB. Might be an easier move which won't require you to go through the hassle/expense of a masters. Have a search on linkedin, and i think there are specific programmes to get medics into MBB. Worth googling for these.
The Warwick MSc is apparently a semi-target, so I'm crossing my fingers for an offer from them. The 'target' MSC, from Oxford, costs 48k which I unfortunately do not have and even if I did, I'm not sure I would consider it a worthwhile use of the money.
I have considered management consultancy but honestly, the job seems boring, and the earning potential isn't really enough to sway me from medicine to do it. As far as I can tell, the money isn't even that good until/if you reach partner level. With IB my plan would be to move into PE/ wealth management down the line, which I know would be difficult to get to from a background of consulting.
Why don’t you do an MSc in CS instead? High pay for Software Engineers and low stress compared to finance.
I have also looked into this, and have also applied to CS MSc programs. My concern is that the job market is quite saturated at the junior level, and climbing the salary ladder might prove to be difficult. Given that my undergrad is in medicine, which has pretty much 0 CS or mathematical modules, I don't think I would stand a very good chance at getting into a good (FAANG) grad job out of just an MSc.
Realistically, a CS job might get me £40k upon graduation, and from what I gather that number would increase to 100-120k TC after about 5 years of good work. This is pretty good, but I don't think it would outperform my earning potential in medicine by a great deal. It's also a lot riskier than medicine. The benefit of CS is that the salary ramps up quick, but it hits a pretty low ceiling. To make money in CS, you should do it after undergrad, and earn big bucks in your early 20s. Those years are behind me now. At this stage of my life, I don't think it would make a whole lot of sense to go into CS.
Finance, on the other hand, has a much higher ceiling to reach, and that is why I am more interested in this field.
Best bet is to network with bankers in the Healthcare coverage groups. Use LinkedIn. Target Analysts/Associates and recruiters.
This might be a good idea, I will look into this. Any tips on how to find the correct people? How do I identify the bankers working in Healthcare related fields?
bro you have a number of options:
1) Sit your USMLEs and apply for US residency (you still have time). Top specialities are out of the equation but earning potential can be very high depending on where you want to work (further rural you go makes way more - similar if not more than banking - for example most sub specialities in Alaska will be on close to or more then $1m but obviously the caveat is that its in Alaska).
2) Finish f2 and just move to australia. Pretty sure its difficult getting a competitive speciality there as a foreigner but its pretty easier to do EM training there which pays £250k as a consultant for 38 hour week. Plus as a junior doctor you get decently. Also you can pick up locum shifts or just full time locum which pays up to £1.5-2k per day (again working more rural pays more e.g. supply and demand). Canada is also an option here as well.
3) Apply for consulting roles and then try and lateral into banking. MBB may be difficult but tier 2 I think is doable.
4) I have heard of people going into life science VC but not sure about how it works.
5) Try the MSc for banking. I've also seen a couple people move into healthcare related boutiques with little experience.
Thanks for the awesome reply.
I've deeply considered 1 and 2. I even sat my Step 1 (250+) in my F1 year, and was accepted for a research fellowship in Texas (contingent on passing Steps 2 and 3). I decided not to pursue this for a number of reasons which I won't go into, but the main reason is that I have family commitments in the UK and I decided that I shouldn't abandon them just for the sake of making money. This is also why I ruled out Australia and Canada, and the Middle East (which is just a shit place to live anyway). Ireland is another country I was looking at, and remains a possibility for me. Base consultant pay there is double what it is in the UK, but with less scope for private practice. In the long run you definitely make more in Ireland.
Consulting -> banking is a tough road from what I can tell, probably more so for someone like me, but it is an option. Another person mentioned McKinsey being keen on hiring doctors, and I am looking into that now. It looks like a real possibility, probably a lot more realistic than me getting into IB off the back of an MSc from a random uni.
Life science VC is not something I have heard about or looked into, but I will do. Thanks a lot
You sound like you're knowledgeable about medical/alternative careers. Are you a medic?
Yeah in the middle of med degree now at what would be a semi target for IB. Doing intercal this year at imperial so at least I'll have a target uni on CV and I'm gonna try and get some sort of internship for the summer mainly as a back up because main plan is getting a residency in the US. I was really considering dropping out and doing another degree at a target uni to try for IB, but given that I'm non-diversity, don't speak any foreign languages, have no network in finance and there would've been so many more students at target unis this year because of covid-19 and inflated A-level grades, I thought the risk was too great considering what I would be giving up in terms of the US earning potential (which in my opinion would be easier to get into than IB in my current position) and the likes of Australia or Canada if that didn't work out.
Thats fair enough about not wanting to leave the UK, got to respect that about not leaving your family. I guess I am lucky in that aspect since I don't have too much family commitments here.
Also from your other comments I wouldn't get too hung up on PE in the UK unless you speak another European language. It's pretty much a requirement for UMM or MF PE. There's a lot more British english only speaking people in LMM PE though, which recruit from Big 4 as much as IB. So again getting a consulting role at a big 4 would still be somewhere good to go.
I would look into consulting, moving after a few years practicing as a doctor seems to be the move most people make unless you join from undergrad which is almost exclusively oxbridge.
Hope you manage to sort something out. I'm sure it'll work out okay. I know what its like to feel trapped in uk medicine and I have the same opinions about the NHS lol.
There will be more opportunities in New York.
Recusandae ut eius fugit ullam cum sit. Vel odio consequatur aut. Repellendus totam nemo vel recusandae eaque alias ut. Beatae voluptatem illum dolorem dicta id.
Accusamus omnis delectus laudantium repellendus. Vero distinctio at inventore eligendi vitae et consequatur. Corporis repellendus laboriosam non perspiciatis cum.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...