From looking around it appears that the research councils now require a Masters degree before they will fund you for a full-time PhD studentship - but that's the funding body, not the entrance requirement for a particular university/department. I'm pretty sure that didn't used to be the case (I considered doing a PhD via a research council studentship before I got offered an RA post).
Note my knowledge is probably wildly out of date - my experience in academia was from '89-'95.
There might also be other sources of funding that don't have this requirement - unless you are converting from another area and need the Masters to get up to speed I'm not sure what it would achieve. All of the people I knew who did have an MSc before doing a PhD had done a "conversion" MSc.
Note my knowledge is probably wildly out of date - my experience in academia was from '89-'95.
There might also be other sources of funding that don't have this requirement - unless you are converting from another area and need the Masters to get up to speed I'm not sure what it would achieve. All of the people I knew who did have an MSc before doing a PhD had done a "conversion" MSc.