PostDoc Discussion Forum

The person you cited has years of high quality public policy experience not just an MSc. That is what makes them hire-able. What do you have to offer beyond a MSc that makes you so outstanding that a department would risk hiring you without the expected level of qualification - that's what you'd have to ask yourself.
OK you're missing quite a lot about what the job entails, which is why I think you are also romanticising it a bit.
It's a 60 hour working week on average. I don't know any academic who actually manages to take all of their annual leave.
You would be expected from day of appointment to produce 3* and 4* outputs for the REF - you would be trying to do this without any of the methods training a social scientist gets in their PhD, meaning this would be a real struggle given how central methods are now to your field.
You would have annual targets for income generation that need to be met - there is a 12% success rate for the main funder in your area so a large chunk of time is spent writing grants which are not funded.
You will be expected to produce research with real-world impact, which means devoting time to engagement activities (there goes another chunk of your free time).
Then you have reviewing, PhD supervision (without a PhD you'd probably not be allowed to do that so would get more teaching/admin instead), presenting at conferences etc to round off the research side of the role.
A third of your time is teaching - I am giving 40 hours of lectures plus seminars this year. That's quite a lot of prep. You won't only be teaching in your specialist area of course - particularly as without a PhD you'd struggle to claim a specialist area.Personal tutoring - that takes up a lot of time as counselling services are so over-stretched that a lot falls back to academic staff. Continued....

Thank you for your help everyone, these were very considered responses. Bewildered, I have provided an example of a case where someone has attained the rank of Professor at a highly reputed university, showing that it is possible in 2015. Also, The Blavatnik School of Government, in an advertisement for one of their lectureships in public policy, also cited 'equivalent experience' as an alternative to a PhD. I don't have my results yet, so I have no idea whether I can get funding - I have a first at undergraduate but I understand a distinction is required at postgraduate level, too. The funding still won't be enough for me, which is a reason why I want to avoid the PhD route.

My idea of what an academic job is involved is as follows - (1) producing high-quality research across a small number of specialist research areas; (2) teaching students; (3) contributing to furthering the discipline in which you work (attending conferences etc) and (4) performing any administrative duties as required. Is there anything that I'm missing.

Two suggestions:
1) time travel - go back to the 1970s when a PhD wasn't needed.
2) Have a glittering public policy career and then try.
If you are a strong candidate, then there is funding for PhDs in public policy / politics, but you need to be really good. Candidates for even research assistant roles in those areas these days will tend to have a PhD, publications and teaching experience simply because there's a serious large pool of un / under-employed people with PhDs in the field. With an MSc not much chance in academia, you'd be better trying the government route, if you don't want to do a PhD.I also wonder whether you have a realistic idea of what an academic job entails?

Get a fully paid up lecturing post without a PhD (or working towards one) these days. Or you could see about publishing something from your MSc, I'd say that's a minimum if you're not going to do a PhD.

I really want to get into academia, but due to financial reasons, I cannot do a PhD, even if I were to get funding. I have a BA in Politics and will soon have an MSc in Public Policy, along with some experience in the field of public policy - I would be looking to teach and research in a government, policy or politics department. This is my absolute passion, and I think that I would be suited to academia for many reasons. I have noticed that some lecturers/readers/professors do not have PhDs, and if I could replicate what they have done to get into these jobs, that would be ideal. An example would be Giovanni Razzu at Reading University - (https://www.linkedin.com/in/giovanni-razzu-45746760 https://www.reading.ac.uk/economics/about/staff/g-razzu.aspx) a full Professor of Public Policy, who does not hold a PhD.

Does anyone have any experience of this, and/or tips of how to achieve it? Thank you for any help.