If you have no interest in PhD then don't bother enrolling. It will be a 3-4 years or probably longer journey of mental torture.

And if you are really serious about pursuing a career in research after PhD, I would not bother enrolling in local unis for obvious reason. Try NUS/NTU or overseas universities.

I am not familiar with UK universities but Australia universities are offering research scholarship for international students (IPRS , UIPA). IPRS is government sponsored scholarship but managed by the respective universitiy. As far as I know, UNSW and Melb uni has it but my bet is the G8 uni are all offering it.

Good luck.

The scholarships I mentioned covers both tuition fee and living expenses (allowances) fyi.

Yes performance does matter but it depends on your supervisor and your university in providing the facility/research grant/support.

On side note, I am involved in research and papers I got out from local unis for reference is pure bullshit (mind you I mean it when I use this term). I am extremely disappointed with the quality of work produced by the PhD students. However, having said that, I do believe there are still bright students in local uni.

Some of my own opinions:
1. PhD is nothing but just a title for someone else to call you "Dr".

2. If you have no genuine interest in research/academia, don't bother doing PhD unless you are happy to stay in local colleges/uni where publication is not important but rather the contact. However, getting employed by local uni itself is a challenge.

3. Considering you are skipping masters, you are required a minimum 3 years of research in PhD but usually it extends to 4 years. Within this 4 years, the amount of experience you gained in your workplace versus the 0 industrial experience you gain upon completing PhD. One may argue that PhD itself brings a certain prestige and provides leverage but all PhD demonstrates is just your ability to perform research in a larger scale as compared to your undergraduate thesis. My friends who are PhD holders end up being paid $3000 extra per annum (that is $250 per month) as compared to fresh graduate in engineering field and mind you they are 4 years behind as compared to their peers.

4. However, you do benefit from PhD. Research work is extremely fruitful and my friend working in Singapore is earning SGD5000+ per month doing research with certain company. But that is if you are comfortable and happy with research work, eg you are working in your area of research as defined by your PhD dissertation. And mind you, you need to demonstrate that you are competent in your field (by amount and quality of publications) and so on.

4. Salary of 5k for PhD holder as senior engineer (I doubt so). Unless you are involved in the R&D department then probably you stand a chance, but that again if you are interested in research. Again, fyi offshore O&G earns as much as 5k for fresh undergraduate. Ok, let's put O&G aside, having 3-4 years experience in hand, engineers can easily hit 6k or more.

Bottom line: I would say is your interest in research that will determine whether PhD is really for you. If you want to have a picture of what you will be doing in your PhD, go search for publication papers in relation to your potential area of research but choose the papers carefully, eg avoid China and Malaysia conference paper because most of them are considered low quality paper. Try journals if possible.

Given all that I said, this is your decision because is your future and not mine. Oh btw, lecturers LOVE to encourage students to apply PhD under them because you guys are churning out papers/publications for them. And right now I am in overseas Aus uni so what I said may not directly reflect on local uni in Malaysia so i'll let you do the judgement.

$ = AUD,

SGD - SG,

those figures without - MYR