Graduates of the typical nursing, pharmacy and allied health course in the UK earn £32,500 five years after graduating, the 10th highest of the 21 subject areas we compare. The best-paying, Pharmacology and Drug Discovery at Queen Mary University of London, earns £50,500.
Graduates mostly become nurses, midwives, pharmacists, physiotherapists, radiographers, paramedics and other registered health professionals, the majority of them employed by the NHS.
Graduates of the typical nursing, pharmacy and allied health course earn £32,500 five years after graduating (£30,000 after 15 months), above the £31,500 median across all subjects and the 10th highest of the 21 subject areas we compare. Behind that median, its 1,323 courses range from £20,500 to £58,000: the best-paying earns 1.8 times the typical course.
Most courses lead to professional registration and a job on the NHS Agenda for Change pay bands, so pay is dependable from the start, though it rises more slowly than in finance or tech.
Data last updated · HESA Discover Uni
| Course | After 5 years | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pharmacology and Drug Discovery | £50,500 |
| 2 | Optometry | £48,500 |
| 3 | BSc (Hons) Nutritional Therapy | £48,500 |
| 4 | Optometry | £48,000 |
| 5 | Pharmacology | £47,500 |
| 6 | Health Sciences | £46,000 |
| 7 | Mental Health Nursing | £45,500 |
| 8 | Learning Disability Nursing | £45,500 |
| 9 | Nursing (Mental Health) | £45,500 |
| 10 | Medical Physiology | £45,000 |
The best-paying course at each university, ranked by salary five years after graduating. Each figure is the median of each course's own median graduate salary (HESA Discover Uni). Salaries 15 months after graduating come from the Graduate Outcomes survey; three and five years on, from LEO tax data. Joint courses that HESA also files under another subject are left out of this list but appear in the chart below.
Pharmacology, toxicology & pharmacy courses pay the most, at £34,000 for the typical course five years after graduating, and allied health the least, at £31,000.
| Specialism | After 5 years |
|---|---|
| Pharmacology, toxicology & pharmacy | £34,000 |
| Medical sciences | £33,500 |
| Nursing & midwifery | £33,000 |
| Allied health | £31,000 |
HESA's own subject groups. A joint course can count towards more than one.
A median salary is one number standing in for hundreds of courses. This chart plots every course individually, so you can see the spread behind it: how tightly courses in a subject cluster together, or how far apart the best- and worst-paying ones sit.
Each dot is one course's own median graduate salary (not individual graduates' pay), from the HESA Discover Uni dataset. Courses with a cohort too small to report are excluded, and postgrad/top-up/alternate-entry courses are excluded site-wide. Figures compare courses, not people.
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Each dot is one course, positioned by its salary along the horizontal axis (never shifted by more than one dot-width). Vertical position means nothing. It only spreads dots apart so they don't overlap. Hover a dot for details, or click it to open that course's page.
| Course | Institution | Subject | Salary |
|---|
← See the highest paying degrees across every subject
Not counting joint courses, Pharmacology and Drug Discovery at Queen Mary University of London, whose graduates earn a median £50,500 five years after graduating. Next are Optometry at Cardiff University (£48,500) and BSc (Hons) Nutritional Therapy at the University of West London (£48,500).
Graduates of the typical nursing, pharmacy and allied health course earn £30,000 15 months after graduating and £32,500 five years after graduating, 8% more than at 15 months. Across all its courses, joint ones included, salaries range from £20,500 to £58,000.
5 of the top 10 courses above ask for between BB and AAA at A level. Many also require particular subjects, so check each course's entry requirements.
Yes, on average: it ranks 10th of the 21 subject areas we compare, with the typical course paying £32,500 five years after graduating against £31,500 across all subjects. Where you study matters too: the best-paying course earns 1.8 times the typical course.