Hello everyone!
I am an italian engineer (BSc+MSc) about to start a Ph.D. in Electronics engineering in the UK. I wanted to ask you if somebody had experience in maintaining a part time job (in the campus or even off campus) while studying for a full time Ph.D.
I have a fee only scholarship at the moment, so it is vital for me to make a little extra money, but I don't want it to interfere with my studies. Help!

For me, 6 hours/weeks is comfortable and anymore than 12 hours starts to affect my PhD work.

I'm studying for my PhD full time and I work 15 hours a week part-time (in a call centre - yay!), plus teaching (averaging about two hours a week realistic time commitment) in my department. I actually find I'm more productive and procrastinate less than when I was fully AHRC funded for my masters, although I do get quite stressed out come the end of term (like now) when I'm overwhelmed with email from my students.

I'm pretty much in the same situation - I have a fees only scholarship and I cover my living expenses by doing some freelance writing/translation work (as I had done before starting my PhD). The good thing is that I can work from home at my own pace, on the other hand, being a freelance thing, it's very unstable; for example, during the 2 first weeks of February I had almost nothing to do but for the last 3 weeks I've been working about 30 hours a week in my freelance stuff. My ideal weeks are those with no more than 15 working hours, but I reckon that's because translating/writing is a job which requires some intellectual effort, I did a "lighter" job for a while (exams invigilation) and I was more tired after 3 hours translating, than after 8 hours invigilating. So if you are going to work 15-20 hours a week, I would recommend to choose "lighter" jobs that a job which requires you too much intellectual energy - it's better to save it for your PhD.

chech out these links, too - the topic does recur on the forum:
http://www.postgraduateforum.com/showmessage.asp?thread=4863&cat=3&keyword=part%20time%20job&newview=1&stype=TM&category=0
http://www.postgraduateforum.com/showmessage.asp?thread=4094&cat=3&keyword=part%20time%20job&newview=1&stype=TM&category=0

Hej!

I do this! My part-time work is great in that I can often carry out my own work during work time. I do get stressed sometimes and feel that I don't do as much work as everybody else. But I think that this is a general PhD thing. I suppose if I was fully funded I would have more time - but I am sure that more of that free time would be spent chilling than working! I would love funding though!