What is your history graduate doing next?

[Treviarpelli]

Dd seems a bit clueless as to what to do with her history degree. Not averse to further study if necessary but would probably prefer to get started on a career.
Didnt apply for grad jobs this year as just got there head down with getting her degree but is feeling a bit rudderless now

Three subjects don't have recruitment shortages and one of them is history.

What are the other two?

PE and music.

My ds applied and got on a course for a history MA an was told today they've cut the course!

I live in the North East, and I constantly see job adverts from good schools looking for history teachers. Maybe it’s area-dependent.

It really depends on what other interests she has alongside history. Personally, I’d recommend looking into public health. There are lots of areas where strong research and analytical skills are valuable — especially if she enjoys the research side of history — and there tend to be more job opportunities and better funding in that sector at the moment.Worked in academia for a while but I now work in wellbeing. That’s another area with growing opportunities and funding, including counselling, mental health support, SEND, and related fields.

Quite possibly, but they will fill the vacancies.

DD graduated last year (June ‘25) with a history degree. She got a grad role as a project manager with an international publishing and media company in the October, and has since been promoted to project manager.
She had a summer internship at her uni at the end of the first year, and then continued to work there during her next 2 years, so had lots of experience to offer, and her part-time role linked in well to her current role.

Entry level job at the National Archives and has since moved up the ranks.

Sorry, just te-read my earlier reply, that should say DD joined as a grad PM, and was later promoted to a full PM.

Obviously not recent, but I am a history graduate. I did a PGCE and became a primary school teacher. Other History grads in my family did accountancy, teaching and police force graduate training scheme. Would she be interested in the Civil Service? That's something I considered and there're lots of different opportunities there.

I think history grads really do now have to plan for success in the jobs market. Doing nothing and having no idea what you want after 3 years and applying for nothing puts you a year behind. Failure to plan is planning to fail as the saying goes. Why not get straight into the careers section at university? Why didn’t she talk to employers at careers fairs? Lots of grads do get going in y3 and apply for jobs and courses. Working for a degree is only part of what you do in y3. I find it somewhat surprising that grads still think they can sit back and look after exams. Certainly deadlines have been and gone. So I would try snd get any job and have a much deeper think about careers very quickly. Journalism is far too much who you know and no pay for articles. Everyone can communicate now. My DDs friends who are history grads are in law but she’s late to that party. Plus it’s now uber competitive.

All the history grads I know are either in law school / bar school or training as accountants. History is great for most things

At this time of year especially, I get to talk to a lot of senior folk in secondary schools and the subject of the number of teaching staff teaching outside their specialism is always explored. Who knew what a varied career training to be a PE teacher could lead to?

Out of interest, how long did that take?

I think what heads could do 15 years ago bears no resemblance to now. The number of grads has greatly increased and the number of jobs has shrunk. 1 in 8 grads is a NEET I heard this week. So there truly needs to be far more focus on careers and dc being far more focussed.

A masters is definitely not needed for accountancy

@Historian0111101000 Or law. But you need a conversion course! Jobs are problematic though!

My DD completed BA History in 2023, got 2 grad offers (one in an accountancy training contract and the other in a policy consultancy) but finally chose to do MSc in Global Health Policy from LSE and now works in a Healthcare analytics consultancy for the last 2 yeards

Accountancy? How so?

@dancehysterical22 Because you don’t have to be ludicrously numerate to be an accountant. It’s not unusual for humanities grads to become accountants but might be getting more tricky as maths A level is the most taken A level so employers might take a view on mathematical background. However accountancy is certainly a possibility.

Mine did an MA in a PPE type course and went into a policy role in the civil service. He absolutely loves it.

A friend’s daughter took a Masters degree and became an archivist. She did work experience at the House of Commons and now has a fascinating job at a leading private school where she is also involved in running the alumni association and raising money for the school as well as maintaining the archives.

@Treviarpelli MN is hardly typical and a tiny no of grads! The destinations stats for the course tell you more! Who can say what grads are getting jobs and who aren’t. I know an Oxford linguist with nothing but had no idea what she wanted to do so sat back. More dynamic dc do have jobs but it can take a while. Often because they have a very thin cv.

The press gets their info from HESA and other researchers - they don’t make up the stats. If your dc hasn’t bothered applying, has no idea what they want to do, has virtually nothing on their cv, it could be a long wait. If they are proactive, have a cv tailored to a career and know what they want, success will probably come. Plenty don’t get much after a masters either - especially if it’s not work related or in a very oversubscribed field of work. So my advice is to get the cv up to scratch for the career dc wants and don’t scattergun job applications where dc is not really interested.

I think the advice is good here. If your child has a history degree from a decent university, has some work experience, puts themselves out and about developing their leadership skills e.g working as a scout leader, being on the membership committee of a society, hs been a school prefect, worked as a youth leader etc they are going to be a far more attractive prospect than those who don’t get involved with anything.

For what it’s worth I’m not seeing my young grads peers struggling to get decent jobs. They may have taken a bit longer than they’d like but they’re picking up the law training contracts policy jobs, engineering that they all wanted from the off. It is harder, yes, but not one of them is out of work or in a min wage passing the time job

many history grads go on to be accountants.

history teaches a lot of skills useful for accountancy - analysing information, research skills, putting together arguments, being able to explain things, considering different viewpoints, presenting information well, communication, understanding cause and effect.