Careers in pharmacy

Pharmacists help improve health outcomes for communities, while enjoing an amazing work–life balance

While most pharmacists work in community and hospital pharmacies, many also work in primary healthcare environments (with general practitioners), government organisations, industry, medical writing, and academia.

Opportunities for pharmacists are constantly growing as the healthcare sector changes to meet the needs of our communities. Some pharmacists are even involved in border patrol.

Community pharmacy

The role of the community pharmacist centres on the provision of pharmaceutical care to their local community. This may include adherence and clinical medicines review services which aim to optimise health outcomes for their patients.

Pharmacists also provide long-term care services for patients with chronic illnesses, as well as dispensing prescriptions, and assessing and treating some ailments.

Hospital pharmacy

Hospital pharmacies are responsible for serving the medicinal needs of hospital patients, as well as outpatients who require specialised medicines. Their role also centres on patient care with the majority of hospital pharmacists conducting clinical medicines reviews to optimise health outcomes for patients.

Hospital pharmacists may also be involved with the manufacture of intravenous and oncology medicines, while others provide expert advice on medicines.

Industrial pharmacy

Some pharmacists work in industrial pharmacy, developing new pharmaceutical products for human or veterinary use.

Some responsibilities undertaken by industrial pharmacists are formulation and production, quality control, provision of information on new products, clinical evaluation of new products, and the marketing of medicines.

Clinical medicines review services

The goal of clinical medicines review services is to optimise health outcomes of patients by appropriate choice of medicine and dosing schedule, to both increase the effectiveness of medicines and avoid unwanted side-effects or drug interactions.

Some pharmacists offer specialist medicine review services to rest homes or people with complex medication regimens.

Pharmacy research

The first step towards a career in pharmacy research is to enrol in postgraduate study. At the School of Pharmacy, we offer postgraduate qualifications ranging from six-month postgraduate certificates to PhD and masters' qualifications.

• Explore postgraduate study options at the School of Pharmacy
• Discover our world-changing pharmacy research