The Datum Report

Occupation 2251 · Professional occupations

Pharmacists

Half of full-time pharmacists in the UK earn more than £53,772 a year, and half earn less.

Pharmacists dispense drugs and medicaments in hospitals and pharmacies and advise on and participate in the development and testing of new drugs, compounds and therapies. They counsel on the proper use and adverse effects of drugs and medicines.

How people enter it

Entrants possess a degree in pharmacy. To register with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), entrants must have completed a one year period of pre-registration training and passed a registration exam. Further training is available to permit pharmacists to prescribe medicines independently.

What the work involves

• prepares or directs the preparation of prescribed medicaments in liquid, powder, tablet, ointment or other form following prescriptions issued by medical doctors and other health professionals
• advises health professionals on the selection and appropriate use of medicines
• highlights a drug’s potential side effects, identifies harmful interactions with other drugs and assesses the suitability of treatments for patients with particular health conditions
• checks that recommended doses are not being exceeded and that instructions are understood by patients
• maintains prescription files and records issue of narcotics, poisons and other habit-forming drugs
• liaises with other professionals regarding the development, manufacturing and testing of drugs
• tests and analyses drugs to determine their identity, purity and strength
• ensures that drugs and medicaments are in good supply and are stored properly

Also called

Chemist (pharmaceutical) · Dispensary manager · Pharmaceutical chemist · Pharmacist · Pharmacy manager

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for pharmacists, full-time employees, 2023 to 2025. Each point is that year's ASHE April snapshot as published — revisions are not backfilled into earlier years, and a year ONS withheld is a gap rather than a joined line.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Year-on-year change

The change from each year to the next, in per cent, computed from the figures in the chart above — so the two cannot disagree.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Pay by region

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees, ranked, against the UK figure. 11 of 11 regions are published: ONS withholds a cell where the survey sample cannot support it, and those are shown as gaps rather than dropped — an absent region is not a region without the work in it.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Period 2025. Table

Every regional figure

ONS does not publish occupational pay below region. Cells the survey could not support are shown as withheld, with its reason — adding a region split to a specific occupation leaves roughly a tenth of cells publishable.

Common questions

Classified alongside this

Dental practitioners · Medical radiographers · Optometrists · Other health professionals n.e.c. · Paramedics · Podiatrists