Operations PhD London

[ralphtopomelish]

Hi everybody! I am a last year PhD student in a top university in the UK in Operations. I started my PhD intending to do an academic career, but realised it is not for me. I want to make a transition to industry and I find quantitative finance quite interesting. My research focus so far has been mostly empirical (a couple of published and almost published papers), but I did some work on more theoretical optimisation and machine learning problems (nothing published yet here). I know how to program in several languages, but mostly program in Python/R (limited C/C++ for some simulations). My question is, is it possible to make the transition? While I can extend my PhD for another year, I will not be able to do an internship (my supervisors nor the university will allow it), so I don't see the point of extending it.

I've attended a few recruiting events from companies like G-Research and, while they said my profile would be ok (at least they would give me an interview), I am afraid most people coming from more traditional backgrounds (Physics, Maths, CS PhD) will have a clear advantage over me. Also, G-Research and top places are very competitive and can probably interview some non-traditional backgrounds, I'm not sure about less known places. Do you think it would be possible for someone like me to be successful in quantitative research?

Also, what kind of salaries can someone in quantitative research (alpha seeking roles) expect in London? The recruiter from G-Research mentioned something like £200K + bonus, although that sounds incredibly high and probably extremely rare.

Thank you for your time!