Career Prospects

The 2011 National Student Survey revealed that 91% of our undergraduates had progressed into a job, or into further study. A more recent survey of our graduates has indicated that this figure has increased to 96%.

The School of History is committed to providing programmes that allow our students to gain and hone the valuable skills required to meet the demands of the modern workplace and career prospects for History graduates are wide ranging, due to the valuable transferable skills acquired and developed during the course of study.

Graduates find themselves prepared for a variety of career options, including research careers within government and NGOs; museums, galleries and libraries; records management and information officers in a variety of workplaces; journalism; numerous roles in the public sector; teaching; and politics – to name but a few.

Recent publications have noted the valuable nature of history degree programmes, and acknowledged the wide range of career paths that history graduates can follow.

In recent years history graduates have held the following key positions in civil society: chancellor of the exchequer, chair of the BBC Board of Governors, vice-chancellor and chancellor of Oxford University, chairman of the joint intelligence committee and head of MI6, director of the National Criminal Intelligence Service, General Secretary of the TUC, chairman of Manchester United, Olympic champion and world record holder, and heir to the throne. They have as well become celebrated lawyers, press barons, well-known television and newspaper journalists, famous comedians and entertainers, award-winning authors, heads of advisory bodies and charities, directors of major museums, top diplomats and civil servants, chief constables, high ranking officers in the armed forces, and business millionaires. This last is perhaps the most surprising, but it is a matter of fact that history graduates have, in recent times, held proportionately more directorships of Britain’s major companies than graduates of any other subject.

Professor David Nicholls (The Academy of Higher Education), The Employability of History Students, 2005