Most people do take the route of formal scientific qualifications into biology. In the UK, this amounts to doing: 1  necessary GCSE exams at 16 and suitable A-levels at 18 (though not necessarily including biology). know people whose original qualifications (usually a university degree) were in history, medicine, physics, maths, civil engineering, modern languages, computer science or art who have gone onto successful careers as biologists and to publish science papers.