Pros
- There's a lot of talented and friendly staff there, certainly the majority. Quite a lot of technical/scientific competent people. - A variety of training/development opportunities are made available. In addition, I found that training was generally always carried out effectively and with due care to ensure that employees felt confident in their ability for what they were being trained in, - Flexi-time system allows for some flexibility, a boon to work-life schedule.
Cons
- Very poor pay, generally across the board. Maybe the pay has increased over time, but as far as I'm aware, it is still abysmal. When I started my first position, for example, pay was around £18,000. This, when most employees are based in/around York - an expensive city. There is no chance at any kind of meaningful savings/investments. - Pension contributions scheme is also extremely poor (tied to the low wages, of course). You could busk with a recorder on the streets and end up putting more into a pension pot than the scheme at Fera. - Career advancement within the company is virtually non-existant. Most job positions you can move into will be the same pay, or "better" in the most negligible sense. Also, middle/senior management are going absolutely nowhere in a hurry, they'll be quite happy to sit in comfortable/decently paid positions doing....not a lot. So don't count on any promotions to management positions in the next couple decades. - In most of the positions at Fera, the work isn't terribly interesting, it's pretty monotonous. Which isn't necessarily a dealbreaker, of course, but if you're going to do monotonous routine work, there are a variety of employers who will pay you more than a poverty wage to do it.