Social sciences

Labour market information for biomedical sciences doctoral graduates (August 2011)

Biomedical doctoral graduates were less affected by recession and subsequent spending cuts than those from other disciplines and the labour market for this group of doctoral graduates is only slightly changed from the labour market before the recession. There has been a minor reduction in the proportion of doctoral graduates entering scientific R&D as public and private research budgets fell in the last two years however, it remains to be seen whether this is temporary or represents a permanent retrenchment of the biomedical doctoral labour market.

‘What do researchers do? Doctoral graduate destinations and impact three years on' reports that within the UK higher education was the most significant employment sector for social sciences respondents (62%) with 47% in teaching and lecturing occupations and 14% in research occupations. 

The social sciences disciplinary group includes the following subjects:

• Academic studies in education
• Business studies
• Catering and institutional management
• Economics
• Human and social geography
• Land and property management
• Law
• Marketing and market research
• Other business and administrative studies
• Politics
• Psychology (without a significant element of biological science)
• Sociology
• Transport

Subject specific occupation information is provided for business studies, politics, human and social geography, law, economics and academic studies in education.