History : Your skills

Although history is a subject viewed by some as non-vocational, history graduates go into a very wide range of careers. This indicates that employers widely respect history graduates as having a valuable combination of skills.

Studying history improves the depth and range of your personal transferable skills and allows you to develop:

• critical reasoning and analytical skills, including the capacity for solving problems and thinking creatively, often through extensive reading; 
• intellectual rigour and independence, including the ability to conduct research using different types of tools, such as information and communications technology, and sources;
• the ability to construct an argument by selecting and ordering relevant evidence and then to communicate findings in a structured, clear and persuasive manner, both orally and in writing;
• additional communication skills, such as negotiating, questioning and summarising;
• self-motivation and self-reliance with the ability to work without direct supervision and manage time and priorities effectively;
• the ability to discuss ideas in groups, accommodating different ideas and reaching agreement;
• the capacity to think objectively and approach problems and new situations with an open mind;
• an appreciation of the different factors that influence the activities of groups and individuals in society.