skedaddle

I don't want to hi-jack /u/AnotherSecretProf's AMA, but I'm a Senior Lecturer in History at a UK university (finished PhD in 2012) and can offer some advice.

1) You'll need to publish in order to get a job. You should aim to have at least two good academic journal articles published by the end of your PhD. These things take AGES to peer review and work their way through the system, so you should think about submitting to journals as early as you can. Don't wait until your work is finished and perfect - accept the possibility of rejection and jump in.

2) Present your research at as many conferences as possible. A lot of people do just one or two conference papers during their PhD - I did more like fifteen. Some of these were a waste of time, but others led to invites to write articles/book chapters and allowed me to meet people that I'm still working with years later - the problem is that you don't know which conferences will create these opportunities. So, maximise your opportunities and present your work as often as possible. Don't be afraid of reusing material - you can always find a way to tailor it to the specific themes of the conference.

3) Get some teaching experience. You need to balance this with all of your other commitments, but you need to tick as many teaching boxes as possible in order to get a job: run seminars, ask to give a few lectures, mark essays, and seize any opportunity to run a module (particularly if it's one of your own design).

4) Apply for prizes. There are a lot of essay prizes and small grants that are only open to PhD students and Early Career academics. Scope out all of the ones in your field now, then have a plan for when you intend to apply for them. It's so easy to lose track of these deadlines and then miss out on the opportunity to apply for them. Prizes are often linked to articles, so you get a publication out of them too!

5) Develop a social media presence. Twitter is full of historians and can be a great way to get yourself known before you're ready to publish. Consider running a blog.

In short, immediately start to think of yourself as a professional, practicing academic. Do everything you can to maximize your chances when you enter the job market, but be prepared for the possibility that you might not make it - so much of it comes down to luck, and I know lots of brilliant historians who worked incredibly hard and just didn't get the opportunities.

Not the OP, but here's the standard pay spine for UK universities (the table shows the figures for the last few years - just look at the right-hand column for the latest ones):

http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=2210

When I got my first permanent lectureship (aged about 25) I was on something like point 31. A promotion to Senior Lecturer (which usually happens after a couple of years in the job) took me up to point 37. Outside of these promotions, you advance one 'point' up the scale each year until you hit a ceiling. At that point, you'd need to have done something to justify progressing to the next band - such as taking on additional admin/leadership responsibilities, publishing, getting grants, etc. The top end of the scale is obviously reserved for senior management and very experienced professors. Most full-time, permanent academics are probably earning between £32,000 and £50,000.

However, in order to earn this kind of salary you have to get a full-time, permanent lectureship. These jobs are extremely difficult to get, and often require young scholars to work for several years as poorly paid teaching assistants and take lots of temporary contracts all around the country. It can be very hard to survive these years, but once you're in the system the salary is fairly good.

Yes, getting any kind of humanities PhD funding is difficult. The largest source of funds in the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). They used to have a fairly open national competition, but now they allocate 'blocks' of funding to specific universities. These universities then run their own, annual applications process. Sometimes they'll advertise PhDs attached to very specific projects, and other times they'll invite people to bring project ideas to them. In order to get access to these funds, you really need to approach a lecturer at a participating university (see the list in the above link) and tell them about your proposed project. If they're interested, they should offer some guidance on how to apply.

Alternatively, some other universities offer their own schemes. At my place, we appoint a small number of Graduate Teaching Assistants each year - you get free tuition and about £10,000 a year to live on, but in return you have to teach on our undergraduate modules from the moment you arrive.

Being American shouldn't rule you out of anything, but it would be worth checking the small print. Most of our PhD students have already completed an MA degree (usually 1 year). So, you might need to do this before you can get onto a PhD programme.

Try this website for finding specific PhD funding: http://www.findaphd.com/