Grace*, 31, is a pharmacy technician in Lagos who works a government job while picking up shifts across hospitals and pharmacies. She talks to us about the financial realities of locum work, how much she earns, how she balances exhaustion with survival, and her dream of saving enough to japa. This is her life in one week.
MONDAY
My “main” job is with a government health organisation where I work for the first three days of the week. My duties today are the usual: filling and labelling prescriptions, keeping patient records tidy, juggling inventory, and helping the pharmacist on duty keep the whole thing running smoothly. It sounds simple until you realise just how many patients walk through the doors of a public health organisation daily, each with their own stories, ailments, and demands.
The job pays ₦200,000 a month, which is decent on paper, compared to the average ₦130k – ₦150k that entry-level pharmacy techs earn. Senior pharm techs might push up to ₦180k, while licensed pharmacists typically earn at least twice as much.
I actually wanted to study pharmacy, but missed the university cut-off, so I went for a three-year pharmacy technician diploma instead. Licensed pharmacists spend six years in school and still sit licensing exams, which explains why they earn far more. Sometimes I think about how different things might be if I’d made it, but this is the path that opened up for me.
I’ve been in the profession for almost five years and now earn slightly above the average pharmacy tech salary. But the truth? If I relied only on my ₦200k salary, I’d be drowning in bills before the second week of the month.
That’s why my real hustle comes from locum jobs. A locum, in plain terms, is someone who stands in temporarily for another professional. For pharmacy work in Nigeria, it means covering shifts for pharmacists on leave, burnt out, or just needing a day off. I work locums from Thursdays through Sundays, with one HMO pharmacy, one specialist hospital, and two retail pharmacies.
Locum rates aren’t fixed. They float between ₦10,000 and ₦20,000 a day, depending on the organisation and how desperate they are for cover. I usually earn ₦10k per shift. Three to four locum days a week easily adds up to ₦120k – ₦150k extra per month. That’s almost as much as my main salary.
But the catch is the exhaustion. I only truly rest one day a week. The rest of the time, I’m either in Ikeja, Ikorodu, Lekki, or somewhere in between, making sure another pharmacist’s absence doesn’t leave a pharmacy stranded.
TUESDAY
Today I’m at the government office. It’s a routine day where everything blurs into files, drug labels, and patients who don’t always understand why the doctor prescribes one thing and not another.
A big part of my job is being the invisible glue. The pharmacist is the decision-maker, but I make sure the prescriptions are correct, the drugs are dispensed safely, and patients don’t get stuck in endless queues over minor errors. Patients rarely know what a pharmacy technician does, but the system clogs up quickly if I disappear.
When drugs go out of stock, I have to flag it, find an alternative that matches the prescription, and make sure the pharmacist approves it. If not, patients would leave without treatment.
Today, I clock out around 4 p.m. instead of 5 p.m. Lagos traffic doesn’t respect job descriptions. I tag along with a colleague who drives, and she drops me at a bus stop along my route to Ikorodu. That little time saved makes the difference between getting home sane and arriving completely drained.
By the time I get home, I’m already thinking about Thursday’s locum. That’s the thing about this lifestyle: you’re always mentally calculating the next shift, the next call, the next ₦10k.
WEDNESDAY
Today is my last official day at the government office this week. Our work is rotational, so I’m free to focus on the side hustle once I finish my allocated batch of tasks for the week. I prefer cramming the work into fewer days; it frees up the rest of the week for locum jobs.
The upside of batching is flexibility. The downside is the burnout. My head is buzzing by evening, but I can’t afford to slack off. My locum shifts kick off tomorrow.
THURSDAY
With locum work, I don’t control when the calls come in. To get shifts, I registered at pharmacies as a locum staff. They call to check my availability when they need me, and I slot them in around my week.
The locum gig I have today is at a retail pharmacy near my house in Ikorodu. They’d called me on Tuesday because their pharmacist was off sick, and I agreed to come in today. I’m there by 7:30 a.m. to be ready for the 8:00 a.m. shift. Retail pharmacies are intense in a different way — endless queues, customers arguing about prices, and the constant dance of keeping stock accurate while attending to impatient people.
There’s also the part no one talks about: retail pharmacies are where you see the real gaps in Nigeria’s healthcare system. Patients who can’t afford full prescriptions beg for half doses. Others try to self-medicate, swearing paracetamol cures everything.
A few demand antibiotics without prescriptions, like the man who insisted I give him Augmentin because he had used it before. And while I can’t advise them medically, I still have to absorb their frustration, explain the process, and play mediator until a pharmacist on duty steps in.
I leave at 6 p.m. Even though my house isn’t far from the pharmacy, by the time I get in around 7, I’m already drained and half-asleep, bracing myself for another 12-hour shift tomorrow.
FRIDAY
Today’s locum shift is with one of the HMOs in Ogudu. Unlike hospitals or retail pharmacies, HMOs run on tech-driven systems. My job here is mostly behind a computer: managing drug inventories, dispatching medication packages to enrollees, and documenting everything in their software.
It sounds easier, but staring at a screen for 12 hours straight is its own kind of exhaustion. Call time is 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., but I leave home at 6 a.m. to beat the worst of traffic. At the end of the day, I spend almost two hours just trying to get back, plus ₦3,000 on transport.
Still, I can’t complain too much. It’s extra money, and I know the rhythm now: survive the hours, collect the pay, and remind myself what I’m saving for.
SATURDAY
Another retail pharmacy, this time in Ikeja. It’s the usual chaos: patients hovering over the counter, parents dragging restless kids, and the occasional “aunty, please help me with this” request for everything from cough syrup to controlled drugs they know I have no business dispensing.
By the end of the day, I’ve made ₦30k extra this week from locums. After deducting transport, I’m left with about ₦24k. That’s still a full second salary if I stack up enough shifts. My plan has always been to save everything I make from locum work, plus a little chunk from my main salary. I live on about ₦150k a month.
The ultimate dream is to japa. I’ve been saving consistently for two years, hoping to hit at least ₦5 million before I make the leap. In theory, I should already have up to ₦3 million stacked, but life keeps interfering. Between paying black tax as the firstborn of five siblings, constant family emergencies, and random expenses, my money never really stretches beyond the basics.
Right now, I have just over ₦1 million in savings. It feels slow, but I keep reminding myself it’s still progress.
SUNDAY
Today, I actually take the day off. My body is begging for rest, but I can’t help thinking about my specialist hospital shift in Lekki next week. Those ones are stressful because of the commute. I take the ferry from Ikorodu to VI to save costs. The fare is ₦500, which is reasonable, compared to the thousands a road trip would swallow. From VI, I catch a bus to Lekki. The whole thing still costs about ₦2,000 daily. I must be at the ferry terminal by 6 a.m. to make the morning shift and back there before 5 p.m. to catch the evening departure.
Specialist hospitals are a different beast. The caseload is heavier, the pace faster, and the responsibilities broader. I like the challenge, but I always come home wiped out, feeling like my body clock ran a marathon. I keep going because it’s the life I’ve built: a life of chasing shifts, surviving traffic, and stacking savings one ₦10k note at a time.
But I’ll worry about that next week. Today, I’ll rest.
I dream of a calmer future, maybe somewhere abroad, where I won’t have to juggle five organisations just to feel financially stable. Until then, it’s back to the grind. Because in Lagos, the bills will outrun your bank account if you blink.
