Chance of a pivot into quant?

[boshman]

Evening all,
UK medical student at a top 10 university , currently intercalating in MSc data science (health focus - due to NHS funding). Really enjoying the modelling and data analysis and find it much more satisfying than medicine.
Working on developing a decent GitHub of a mix of medical and financial modelling etc.

Do I stand a chance of a quant job in the future? I’m aware I have a very non traditional background, I have guarenteed employment as a doctor in just over a year , and a strong academic record - should graduate my MSc with a distinction and top 25% of my medicine cohort. Without being overly arrogant, I consider myself sharp with mental maths and scored top percentile in the UK med school admissions.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Can you? Yes.
Should you? Maybe.
Is there anything you find more compelling from your current path?
Having a guaranteed employment as a doctor sounds like a dream to me in this market. Jumping into the quant finance is like fighting with a thousands other similarly brilliant top graduates for a small pool of jobs.
Being really good with technical skills (data, stats, programming, math) is something one needs to ensure good employment in the foreseeable future. Sounds like you have good aptitude for the skill set. Just think long and hard on where you want to apply them.
Take a longer look and see what the career progression is in 20 years.

 

[boshman]

Can you? Yes.
Should you? Maybe.
Is there anything you find more compelling from your current path?
Having a guaranteed employment as a doctor sounds like a dream to me in this market. Jumping into the quant finance is like fighting with a thousands other similarly brilliant top graduates for a small pool of jobs.
Being really good with technical skills (data, stats, programming, math) is something one needs to ensure good employment in the foreseeable future. Sounds like you have good aptitude for the skill set. Just think long and hard on where you want to apply them.
Take a longer look and see what the career progression is in 20 years.

Thanks for the quick reply. I guess my question is can I prep myself up to reach interviews etc without a more formal financial/mathematical background?
I could probably put myself through another year at university if needed.

While there is more to life than money Medicine in the UK is much lower paid than in the US, 6 years of uni and about 10 years of post grad training is required to reach around 6 figures. As far as I understand a quant in London should expect to reach that after a couple of years.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Yes, surely you can get into one of the top quant programs in the UK such as Imperial, Oxford, Cambridge and such.
My limited understanding of the UK quant market is that it's near impossible to break in unless you go to a top program and user the program's brandname and employers connection.
You can prep everything you need to know for interview. What people learn in a master program is not a top secret. They just prepare you to be more employable.
For some comp level, take a look at this for reference.

Thread '2024 Quant Salary Bonus Compensation'

12/25/24

Below is a sample of compensation data collected through r/quant sorted by firms/location/role/YoE/etc. This will be updated over time as more data is available.
Disclaimer: No guarantee of accuracy is given. The data is self-reported so it may result in sample bias.
Nonetheless, these are real-life data that is hard to find.

• Andy Nguyen
• Replies: 10
• Forum: Career Advice

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