Pharmaceutical Salary Guide 2012

The major demand within the pharmaceutical sector in 2011/12 was in the area of regulatory affairs and quality assurance. There has been an ever present demand for people with strong auditing backgrounds and regulatory experience. In addition to this, opportunities for quality control chemists and analysts has increased; while not impacting massively on salary scales, the demand has made the recruitment process a lot faster with candidates receiving a number of offers.

As always there is a demand for niche roles such as process development and R&D. We are also seeing the emergence of demand for ‘QPPVs’ (Qualified Persons in Pharmacovigilance) for the first time. This demand is in line with expectations as new regulations requiring these experts have been implemented.

In general, new graduates with 6-9 months relevant placement experience are finding more opportunities than in recent years and careers in Quality Control or Quality Assurance are the favoured career paths. In research and development we are finding a number of companies insisting that candidates possess Masters qualifications or PhD and are reluctant to take on professionals without industrial experience; making the market somewhat stagnant at that level.  

The market factors driving demand in the pharmaceutical sector are more influenced by expanding facilities, growth and FDI rather than attrition and replacement. This trend will hopefully combat the effects of expiration patents of Irish drugs and the outlook for the pharmaceutical industry is very positive.

	Dublin €K p/a		Regional €K p/a
Job Title	Low	High	Low	High
Director of Quality	90	150	90	130
Quality Manager	55	85	55	80
Qualified Person	65	90	60	95
QA / QC Supervisor	38	50	38	50
QA / QC Analyst	24	42	24	40
Quality Engineer	35	50	35	55
Regulatory Affairs	Low	High	Low	High
Regulatory Affairs Manager	60	80	55	80
Senior Regulatory Affairs Officer	35	65	35	65
Regulatory Affairs Officer	29	50	29	50
Laboratory	Low	High	Low	High
Laboratory Manager	50	70	45	65
Laboratory Supervisor	38	50	38	50
Analytical Chemist	28	45	28	45
Documentation Officer	26	40	26	40
Microbiology Analyst	26	40	28	40
Clinical	Low	High	Low	High
Clinical Operations Manager	55	90	55	75
Clinical Research Officer	30	50	30	45
Clinical Data Manager	40	65	40	65
Research & Development	Low	High	Low	High
R&D Director	90	150	85	130
R&D Specialist	35	50	35	50
Process Chemist	35	60	30	45
Development Chemist	35	55	35	55
Formulation Scientist	40	55	35	55

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CPL Science and Engineering provides staffing solutions to the Pharmaceutical, Biotechnology, Medical Device, Clinical Services, Food, Cosmetics, Engineering, Environmental and Energy sectors. If you would like more information on these salary scales, please don’t hesitate to call our specialist Pharmaceutical recruitment team on (01) 614 6000