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National Careers Service

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Woman sat at a laptop and wearing a headset in an office.
Woman sat at a laptop and wearing a headset in an office.

Welcome to the National Careers Service

We provide careers information, advice and guidance. We can help you make decisions at all stages in your career.

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Meet pharmacist Julie

Julia is a pharmacist and likes that she gets to help people in her job.

1 minute 37 second watch

View transcript

Hi, my name's Julie. I'm a pharmacist, and I work at the Wicker Pharmacy in Sheffield.

In terms of what I enjoy about the job. I enjoy going home at the end of the day and feeling like I’ve actually helped people.

You have to be able to switch tasks quite rapidly. There’s lots of different hats that you're wearing. In the process, the buck stops with the pharmacist. So if something's gone wrong further up the chain, you know the pharmacist is the last opportunity to catch it.

Some people see pharmacy very much about supply, like the practical giving them a box of tablets. But people still need that personal touch advice around healthcare. And I do like doing all those consultations, 1 to 1, with patients.

You've got to fundamentally want to help people because it's healthcare.

It's quite a physical job. You're on your feet all the time, which I like.

Your education will continue past your degree and you have to have a degree to do pharmacy so. But it doesn't end there. That's just the beginning. You know, so you're going to carry on. It's like lifetime learning.

Everybody’s dyslexia is a little bit different. So my biggest problem is spelling. I find it really hard to spell correctly. But nowadays with spell checks on computers, it’s great. People always say, “well what about drug names, they’re so complicated?” But they're not complicated to me because they're very structured. Each part of a drug name actually means something.

So if there is someone out there who has any sort of disability, or diagnosis or whatever you want to call it. Don't discount yourself. Talk to people in the profession and just see how you could get around it.

Education advice if you have SEN or a disability

Find out about the help and support available to you while you are in education or thinking about studying.

Speak to an adviser

Wherever you are with your decisions, you can contact us to get advice from a careers adviser.
Call 0800 100 900 or use webchat to talk online.