It has been suggested, on more than one occasion, that any reasonably intelligent, hard-working person can make it as a scientist. This statement is not to belittle scientists' mental abilities, but merely underpins the basic premise that published scientific work should be reproducible by any competent, suitably informed person. (‘Suitably informed’ means that you'd need to spend the best part of a decade getting academically tooled up for life as a scientist.)

Now this is all very well, but it seems to me that not everyone who could make it as a scientist can actually make it as a PI. Indeed, many research careers are deliberately shortened after the dawning realisation that there is often poor, if any, career structure for post-docs, not to mention mounting exasperation at the post-post-doc bottleneck in the permanent scientific jobs market. So who succeeds in this ruthless battle for the top of the heap? The following points are ten skills and attributes we all need if we are to make it as a PI. Before you convince yourself you are already on track for the top, you might want to ask yourself honestly if you've got what it takes.