AstraZeneca reviews

4.0

79% would recommend to a friend

(7,924 total reviews)
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Pascal Soriot

89% approve of CEO

79% positive business outlook

AstraZeneca has an employee rating of 4.0 out of 5 stars, based on 7,924 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The AstraZeneca employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Pharmazeutika & Biotechnologie industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

8K reviews
2.0
Sep 10, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great place to work as long as you are not a Postdoc. Would advise applying to a Senior scientist role straight after a PhD.

Cons

Matrix working environment means that Postdocs are at the same career level as graduates, Master and PhD students - Postdocs are not undervalued! Not much effort gets out into reviewing project proposals that eventually get funded - especially regarding resources, budget, novelty of the project. More ideas are based on ill-planned pilot studies. Zero opportunity to get any training on the industry experience - immense pressure to publish while not actually providing ample support. Postdoc projects are disconnected from what the rest of the team does - often making the 3 years very arduous and an isolating experience. The programme does not encourage feedback - good or bad. Always criticized when you challenge the status quo. There is far more value towards career progression when you leave the company, than when you are actually there. Establishing confidentiality agreements with academic collaborators can take up to a year - because Postdoc projects do not fall under any tier / project prioritization, slowing down the entire process. The programme is definitely oversold during the interview and doesn't live up to those expectations once you are actually hired. Extreme limitations and restrictions on attending conferences - often being denied of the opportunity. Sign-on bonuses are team-specific. People have gotten 5k to move from London to Cambridge. But nothing when moving from abroad - goes on to show the overall lack of standardization. Payscale, although better than academia, is very arbitrary - prior experiences don't seem to count towards anything. Little to no power to negotiate starting pay.

1.0
Aug 3, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

You can have work life balance.

Cons

If you're from non white community or don't have a great referral from higher. You're gonna get low grade and low pay. If you ask them about it they'll say some racist comments and belittle your qualifications. If you go to HR with complaints they'll treat you like second class employee and often recommend some informal mediation. And utmost say to take a counseling. Even if you ask them about formal process. They'll say you don't have any proof so go with informal one. My scenario I have been part of AZ for more than 5 years. My manager straight away said to my face that he support another employee what you're gonna do about it. I went to the one grade above another manager I applied for a ijp role. All the remarks I got was discriminatory remarks. And within a day they stopped my promotion and asked me to find a new role stating I don't have soft skills. And the immediate manager who said that discriminatory remarks said bad things about me. I have seen the same thing happen to another employee as well. If you're from non white community you're a second class employee. When I went to HR about this all they can offer you counsellings and try to safe guard the abuser. Note: they advertise they have many employee benefits like studying masters. When I enquired about it they'll treat you badly. They'll say everything bad to discourage you from using that option and then say check with the process by this time you'll feel like you don't wanna study at all. Even though if you're talented and have qualification and experience. If you're from non white community this company is hopeless. You can learn bureaucracy from this company and straight away join political party.

2.0
Apr 10, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Well paid. If you are happy to play the game it's as good as most big corporates.

Cons

Important to be 'on message' or you won't get on. It's a little bit like a cult. They have a FIFO policy. Fit In or...

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