To think you can have a great career without a degree

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DD looking at an extended diploma in the creative industries instead of A levels . In general we have 5 to 6 different careers before we retire. Uni is expensive and there is an apprenticeship option. Will she regret not getting a degree later? She is bright and has a great work ethic, but had considerable anxiety in GCSEs.

How much does a degree really matter? Especially if you may have a career change later when you get fed up of being paid a pittance for unsociable hours?

@Denny53 Can I ask what your eldest did at university?

Well done to you and your children.

Computer Science

My husband works in an industry where a lot of people work their way up to senior management by starting off on the tools. Although they earn similar to the ones with a degree they often have lower self esteem and greater levels of imposter syndrome.

It’s a lot easier to study a degree straight from school or college rather than round a family or full time job if she decides to do it later.

I don’t have a degree. I tried but dropped out. I dossed around a few years, temping then got a permanent role. That led to more and I’m now a Marketing Director at a tech start up. I earn £98k plus bonus. Not having a degree has never been an issue, not once. I’ve done professional diplomas but it was always my experience people were interested in.

If my DC want to go to uni, fine, but I won’t be encouraging it above all else. I’d be encouraging them to get working or look at apprenticeships. From my experience being recruited and also recruiting, experience is everything.

My husband doesn’t have a degree. He does however have 30 years industry experience. He’s now earning over £250K.

Your DD could do the creative L3 then a degree apprenticeship. There are some interesting ones in e.g. UX.

Wow. What job does your dh do?

I have no formal education past GCSEs and I'm a consultant in a technical field on 50k+

I’d rather my children have a skill over a degree !

I think that things have changed massively over the last 20 years, and I'm no longer convinced that a degree is necessary or worthwhile. I am very old but I just don't get the current job market at all.

DS graduated last year and I'm not sure his degree has gained him anything at all. He did Classics at Durham and wants to go into publishing. He has been on an internship for nearly a year and has applied for loads of jobs and not even had an interview. A good half of his friends are doing a second degree because one is not enough.

DH has a degree, loads of experience in his field, but he hasn't had a full time contract, with paid holidays, sick pay, job security and so on for nearly 10 years. In fact this has been fine for us, but if you are just starting out it's a pretty shit outlook. So many jobs are gig economy, freelance, zero hours jobs, workers are treated like production units and treated so badly, and I feel so sorry for our DCs that this is what they are going to have to deal with for the rest of their working lives.

I don’t think a degree matters that much if she has natural talent and it isn’t an obstacle in the industry she wants to work in.

Dh has an undergraduate degree. He started his own business so technically doesn’t ‘need’ a degree to be employed, but what he learned in uni has helped massively in making the business a success. I have a PhD (plus BSc and MSc) which I need in my field, but Dh makes 3x as much as me with much less time in education.

That said, life isn’t all about work and uni isn’t all about preparing for a future career. It’s about living independently, making friends, finding yourself and launching into adulthood. The friends/family I know who didn’t go to uni are the ones still mostly living at home at 30, trying to figure out what they’re passionate about, still not sure where they want to live, etc.

I think if she doesn’t want to go to uni, at least find a way to go travelling, work abroad or move away from home to a new place, etc for a year or two. Training and jobs can wait right now.

@Recomme He started off after A Levels by joining the merchant navy, transporting oil. Then moved into cargo inspection (oil), then into a refinery and now into oil production.

I have a degree and DH doesn't and he earns many times what I do.

Nowadays I think it's even more possible than before to have a great career without a degree.

I got a degree, it was cheap and fun and a purely academic pursuit. I was already working.

But 9 grand a term? It makes it not worth it. I think academia is great and learning is great but you can learn anything university can teach you independently. So there is no reason a degree is needed to be expert in something at all, not like it used to be.

If she wants a vocational degree that trains you for a specific job there's no way around the degree but that's a clear route and you wouldn't be asking the question.

Many job streams that used to require a degree (a shortcut to knowing a person can assimilate lots of information and understand and reorganise it into coherent written pieces and demonstrate clear thought processes and basic research skills) are ceasing this requirement.

A degree can also be a good asset to have if you ever want to:

Teach English in China or South Korea. The only requirements are being a native speaker and having a bachelor's degree (no more, no less)

Do post-grad vocational study, Medicine or Law for instance post-grad courses where a degree is an entry requirement.

Be an academic as a career choice.

Aside from that I will be encouraging my own child to do an apprenticeship and learn a trade that's future-proof.

In tech no-one gives a toss if you have a degree. They also pay handsomely.

In contrast my sister has two degrees, a master's (got a first), some conversion course and is chartered in her field and is only on £23k. She also has a tonne of debt still, despite rapidly approaching 40.

My DC are just 22 and 23 and they both earn 25k, they both went to university and one did a masters.
I think it’s a no brainier to have the experience of university compared with three extra years working.
My DH is retired now and was the only one of his siblings who went to university, he retired on 185k whilst his siblings earn between 12 and 40k.

Both academics here, we earn the least of our siblings. My brother is a plumber who knows how to fit/ maintain a very complicated central heating system that footballers seem to like in their Mcmansions and he earns min £150,000 pa with his own company. Husband's bro. in law has an elevator company and is a multi-millionaire. Not a degree between them.

What does doing an extended diploma instead of A levels have to do with not doing a degree? The two are in no way linked, it's perfectly possible to go to university to do a degree after completing an extended diploma.

DH has a very good job and no degree but that is much less likely to happen if starting out now rather than 30 years ago. A degree can also be a key to the world, there are many countries where you are unable to get a work visa without a degree or considerable relevant experience- see earlier comment re getting said experience.

No degree here earn £53k

Yes you can. Especially if you go into engineering apprenticeship type role. Basically any STEM career where entry level doesn’t require a degree is a wise move.

@heyitsthistle

chartered in what? I can’t think of anything chartered that pays a wage as low as that.

Chartered managers, accountants and surveyors for example earn a LOT more than 23k per annum. Sounds like she isn’t chartered if you ask me.

I'm a professional without a degree!

You are missing out on a lot of talented people if you are discounting people without a degree.

It's not one of the things you listed. Sounds wild, I know, but she definitely is chartered. I hear a lot of her news through my dad so maybe there's a bit of misinformation 🤷‍♀️

Completely agree @Greenybluetowel. This poster is being extremely short sighted to not consider anyone without a degree. Experience, aptitude, attitude, potential - all valuable things that a degree does not indicate any notion of.

@tralalom these threads are always full of people proving the opposite to your point - professionals at the top of their careers, earning very well, without degrees. Myself included if you go back and read my post.

I had a colleague doing what the poster claims, having a degree isn’t part of the person specification at our company. When it became apparent that they weren’t using the person spec when deciding who to interview they were given a formal warning and removed from any decision making where hiring new staff or promotions was involved.