If she wants a lectureship (which is your entry-level permanent job), she definitely needs to secure funding if she possibly can, for her CV. This is going to be a long post, hope it's useful, skip if not:
She will also need to spend time during her PhD attending conferences (which can be pricey, although in many subjects there's now much better awareness of how they can be done online and more cheaply, given what's happened with Covid). She will need to teach, but she won't have endless time to do it (and it's not the most lucrative).
What subject is she in (apologies if I've missed this)? The following varies a bit by subject, but here's what she's looking at for a lectureship.
- 4 years of the PhD. In the final year, apply for whatever jobs are going in this field. Some candidates restrict themselves to the UK but many will also look at positions in the US/Europe. Typically, you have to expect to move around the country.
- post-PhD, a few very lucky, very good people get postdoc temporary contracts to do more research ('postdoc fellowships'). There are enormously more of these in sciences than Arts; typically, you will be working for one or two years on someone else's project. Then move on, and repeat.
- if you are less lucky or less good, you may cobble together some temporary teaching, then eventually get a postdoc position. For most people, it's a mixture.
- After a few years, a very tiny number of people who have PhDs then get permanent academic jobs. You then must secure grants in order to bring in funding, and publish publish publish.
I think academia has a lot going for it and obviously, of all the people who want to do PhDs, some do go on and become successful lecturers. So I don't want to sound as if I'm patronising anyone who starts out with this aim. But I don't think there's widespread awareness of how competitive it is. It has got much harder in the last few years and it wasn't easy before.
If you or she is worrying about finance, the reality is that a funded PhD is actually the relatively financially secure part of getting to a lectureship. It's the bit after the PhD (and in the unfunded fourth year) where it gets dicey. I'll do you my history because it's pretty representative. I got my PhD in 2014; I was lucky (and good - sorry, but it matters), and I got a two-year teaching fellowship somewhere prestigious. Then I had a year of temp teaching where I probably earned about 3k in total. Then I was at home with my DD for a year. Then I got a two-year postdoc fellowship somewhere else prestigious, which is now coming to an end. I've interviewed for permanent positions and got to second choice; I've been told I'm eminently hireable. But there aren't a lot of jobs. I'm 36. If I do get a permanent job, the salary will be decent (37k or thereabouts), but it's balanced by a long period of uncertainty and low wages, and it's extremely difficult to do things like getting a mortgage or starting a family.
I've only had to move three times since my PhD; that's quite rare, and it dented my career that I wasn't more willing to up sticks. Mostly, people move a lot.
To add the cherry on the cake, two of my friends who got their permanent jobs recently (both in their mid/late 30s; both took just under ten years from PhD to permanent job, which is quite typical) ...have recently been told they may be made redundant under university cuts. There's a lot of that going around.