Fera Science (Fera) Reviews

- 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.

The company likes to market themselves as providing excellent scientific work that cannot be matched due to their expert scientists. However as time goes on and the company tries to grow, the scientists are increasingly undervalued. The pay is not sufficient for the amount of work and specialist expertise you are expected to provide as a scientist. The job description is open-ended: they say jump, you say how high. A direct quote from the job description: "Delivering [scientific] work across the team as required". The company will secure contracts without ensuring that they have the scientists with the relevant expertise or availability to deliver it. Then they will celebrate getting the contract, leaving the scientists to deliver the work regardless whether it is feasible to do it without compromising good science. This company is increasingly treating the scientists like expendable base-level drones. But without expert scientists the company loses is USP. They are currently in a period of pushing growth over 5 years after being majority bought by a venture capitalist company. They are growing the company off the backs of underpaid and overworked scientists.