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

For what it’s worth I’m not seeing my young grads peers struggling to get decent jobs.

I don’t agree. I work with plenty of BA and MA holders in humanities who are doing minimum-wage jobs because they can’t find anything in their field.

I think these Mumsnet posts like “oh, just get a job in a museum or archive” are absolutely ridiculous. Anyone working in the heritage sector would know how competitive and difficult it is. Even if you do get a role, you end up working for years on minimum wage and/or hourly-paid contracts.

The issue is that people used to be able to get jobs with a history degree because it gives you a wide range of transferable skills. That was more common before all these very specific university courses appeared—now, if you want to be an archivist, you need a dedicated degree.

History is too broad; you need to decide which direction to take and do additional courses, maybe an MA, plus plenty of volunteering if you want to do anything in the sector.

If you’re happy to pursue other paths, you may have better chances. But one thing is for sure: the job market is brutal out there.

the job market has had many bad moments, it definitely was when I graduated in 2010. I think it’s quite normal for grads to have a time doing minimum wage jobs prior to getting on a grad scheme/ training course.
The difference might be less availability of the minimum wage jobs though.

You're lumping History in with the rest of Humanities, which is your first mistake. Creative Writing degrees are less likely to lead to law, accountancy, archive and governmental positions generally. But I do agree that a specific MA helps direct the career of a History grad, better than just the basic BA.

I'm reading all this with interest. I have a year 12 who is trying to decide what to do at university. She's doing English language, literature and History (Predicted grades A, A, A) and doesn't have a plan for after university. Does anybody have any advice about how you pick a history degree? Are they very different from each other?

She likes some of the earlier history, rather than 20th century or the politics stuff and for English she mostly enjoys doing the creative writing aspects.

She's not sure whether she'd be better doing combined English lit and History, or whether that'd be a mistake.

Does anybody have any advice about how you pick a history degree? Are they very different from each other?

The structure and content - that is modules offered, which modules are compulsory, assessment methods - can vary widely from one university to another. She needs to look at history courses with her own interests in mind. If she likes writing, she might look for courses with options to do extended essays or a dissertation, for example.

(Bearing in mind that modules offered can depend on the interests of current staff, so there's no guarantee that something offered now will still be on offer when she's in her third year.)

Plus consider whether she's chiefly interested in British, European or World history. Or if she wants to look for a degree specifically in Medieval history, for example.

Module reading lists are usually available online. Looking at those will also give her an idea of the content and approach.

Mine narrowed down choices by distance from home, not wanting to be in London and one or two other things (campus v non-campus, grade requirements), then started looking at the history degrees in much more detail.

Mine ended up doing history by accident! So he was at Birmingham because he really liked that uni and then swapped courses after the first one proved a disaster. Luckily, Birmingham is excellent for history and very supportive.

Had he actually applied for history I suspect he might have chosen Warwick because it has a focus on more modern history and social history, maybe York. He was very drawn to an economic and social history course at Glasgow.

Other unis are quite known for being more international (I'd put Birmingham here) and some more focus on ancient (also Brum) or some on Medieval (York) so it id definitley worth looking at modules - along with the university itself, entrance requirements, employment stats, cost, distance from home - and so on.

@HairyCalifornia

I was talking about the humanities more generally, as history isn’t the only field that's struggling these days.

Moving into law used to be a viable route, but that’s not really the case anymore. I even considered doing a law conversion course after I couldn’t find a job with my History PhD—even after teaching for over five years at a Russell Group university and having pages of volunteer and paid archival and museum experience on my CV.
But the legal sector is very tough now. Many paralegal and legal secretary roles are being reduced or changed by AI and automation, and finance is facing similar pressures.

The Civil Service is still an option, although plenty of people are now looking to move on from it. I know a lot of people from both humanities and science backgrounds who went into the Civil Service, though, interestingly, not a single historian.

I agree.

I remember that many of my students chose the university where I was teaching History because of specific modules, only for the university to cancel them due to low student numbers that year.

I would also look into which universities still offer History MAs. Because of the current financial pressures, some universities have discontinued their master's programmes. That's something I'd take into consideration as well, especially if your child might want to continue their studies after completing a BA.

I have a DC graduating this year with a History-adjacent degree and continuing straight into a MA, chosen from many after huge amounts of research (started in second year) across several countries. As others have said, a general History degree is harder to convert to employment than it was a generation ago and mostly requires further study if a young person wants to work in a field related to their discipline.

Thank you, that's very useful to know. I think she's going to have to do quite a bit of research into exactly what it is she wants to do.

@Historian0111101000 Law is a viable route if you want the Bar. You have had the luxury of studying a subject you love for years, but I also think it’s possible to study law with the new funding in place for masters but you seem to just stack up academic qualifications! The best plan is to know what you want much earlier and, if it’s law, pull all the stops out for that. It’s not so expensive to convert if you can live at home and get scholarship awards.

Academic, lecturer, he writes and has had several articles published both in the uk and abroad .Does podcasts and also writes Alternative history fiction ( published) .

This used to be the case for good histroy grads... they'd go into professional services.

I fear it is less the case now and employers in those fields favour law grads not converters, econ/business grads for consulting, City etc.

Our generation's experiences are not that relevant in the current grad job market.

@Perfectnightssleep There’s definitely law work for the brightest and the best whether doing law conversion or not. They do need to choose the area of law carefully but not everyone should be identical when becoming a lawyer or accountant for that matter!

That's encouraging.

It does seem harder though nowadays but maybe it's harder for law grads too!

@Perfectnightssleep There’s a massive over supply of law grads. There’s undoubtedly room for history grads. Some big law firms do internships for non law grads and they would not bother if they didn’t recruit them and barristers are still a mix of degrees. Probably more with law degrees but many don’t. The non law route just costs more so you need to be good!

To strike a more positive note for those thinking of a History degree, DD has just graduated from UCL in History. Has a training contract at a law firm from a First Year scheme. The vast majority of her course mates are graduating with jobs to go to or have secured internships this summer which will hopefully lead to a job - mostly law firms but also big 4, Teach First, civil service and multinational businesses.

@Waythroughwoods That’s good news and I’m sure other high calibre history grads from excellent universities have jobs too. As I indicated earlier, the brightest and the best are still wanted. It’s a case of planning a career and not sitting back until the final year.

My History graduate son did a Masters after his degree and decided during that that he wants to be a specialist librarian/ archivist and that applying for a graduate traineeship was the best route. He didn’t succeed in the round of applications straight after graduation although he had some interviews ( didn’t prepare soon enough due to dissertation pressure). He managed to do a mixture of online training and a variety of relevant volunteering ( not easy as we live in rural Scotland and he hasn’t passed his driving test yet!) and had two job offers after a year. He’s off to work in a a Cambridge college library next month. You have to be very determined and have parents willing to let you live at home but it is possible. I think you have to be clear this is your dream job though, not something you’re applying for on a whim or because you think it will a nice low stress job.

https://careers.nationaltrust.org.uk/OA_HTML/a/#/search
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/about/our-people/careers-with-us/job-search/
https://www.historichouses.org/jobs-and-volunteering/
https://ihbconline.co.uk/jobsetc/
https://www.nationalmuseums.org.uk/jobs/
https://careers.britishcouncil.org/careers?start=0&pid=563705892507301&sort_by=hot

I would look for something to get started with, rather than her dream job. Any experience will help her - even if it is to define what she doesn't want. Still plenty of jobs being advertised (including part time).

@bangingmyheadonabrickwall I’m sure the average history grad can be a cook or head gardener or surveyor for the NT! Cottage cleaner - maybe? There’s jobs advertised but for some you actually need qualifications or experience!

I became a journalist with my history degree. But that was decades ago!
For the museum sector I’d really recommend a more specialised further degree. I’m a trustee at a museum and have noticed all the curators have something. And we’re a very small set up