Arts and humanities

Labour market information for arts and humanities doctoral graduates (August 2011)

Job prospects for arts and humanities doctoral graduates seem to be returning to the situation they were in before the recession at just over 6%. The jobs breakdown is also similar, with a slight reduction in roles in the public sector and more roles taken up in private sector arts and media. Marketing and PR has recovered faster from the recession than other areas of the economy and these sectors may prove to be more important destinations for arts and humanities doctoral graduates than in the past.

‘What do researchers do? Doctoral graduate destinations and impact three years on' reports that within the UK, education was the largest employment sector for arts and humanities respondents with 67% in higher education and 12% in other education.  Teaching professionals was the most common occupation (60%) with 50% of respondents employed as lecturers in higher education. 11% worked in research-related roles across all sectors (8% in higher education).

The arts and humanities broad disciplinary group includes the following subjects:

• American studies
• Archaeology
• Art and design
• Cinematics
• Communication studies
• Comparative literature
• Design studies
• Drama
• English
• Fine art
• History
• Journalism
• Linguistics and classical and ancient languages
• Media studies
• Modern languages
• Music
• Philosophy
• Theology

Subject specific information is provided for  English,history, linguistics and classical and ancient languages and music.