Pharmacy technician
Pharmacy technicians prepare and supply medicines for prescriptions, under the supervision of a pharmacist.
Typical Salary
£27,000 – £36,000
per year
Working Hours
37–40
hours per week
Day-to-day tasks
In this role you could:
- prepare prescription items
- make sure prescriptions are legal and accurate
- order new stock using computerised systems
- give advice to customers about medicines and refer complex queries to the pharmacist
- handle confidential information
Skills needed
- customer service skills
- to be thorough and pay attention to detail
- excellent verbal communication skills
- active listening skills
- maths knowledge
- the ability to work well with others
- patience and the ability to remain calm in stressful situations
- administration skills
- to be able to use a computer and the main software packages competently
How to get into this role
You can get into this job through:
- an apprenticeship
- working towards this role
Career progression
With experience you could become a lead pharmacy technician or a department manager.
You could take on a specialist role like clinical technician, working with healthcare professionals and patients on wards. There may also be opportunities to move into areas like oncology, paediatrics or clinical trials.
Some pharmacy technicians go into research and development work, or move into pharmaceutical production, sales or marketing.
You could train to be a pharmacist.
Another option is to become a pharmacy assessor working with trainee pharmacy technicians.