Arts, creative arts and humanities : Types of work

Here is a breakdown of the activites that graduates are doing for each of the arts and humanities subjects covered in What Do Graduates Do?

Performing Arts

23.7% of graduates in performing arts were employed in art, design and culture occupations. This is a slight increase on 2009, suggesting more employment opportunities were available in fields related to their degree subject. A high proportion of performing arts graduates (11.6%) worked as education professionals, the same as history and English graduates combined. An even higher proportion (13.5%) went into marketing, management and business professions. Despite the uncertainties of many of the theatrical professions, their unemployment level was almost exactly the national average though this may have been compensated for by a fairly high level of employment in retail, catering and bar work six months after graduation (23%).

English

The 2010 cohort showed much more evidence of graduates going directly into work following graduation with a 3.7% increase on 2009 (to 55.6%) and 27.6% going on to some form of further study. Although over 30% were in numerical clerking, secretarial or retail, catering and bar work a significant number (22.9%) secured employment in business, marketing or management roles supplemented by 7.5% entering the field of education and 7.1% going in to art, design and culture occupations, which includes the media and journalism. This subject had the highest number going in to teacher training (5.2%) but that is still only one in every twenty graduates, illustrating that this is by no means the only option for English graduates.

History

Of all the disciplines reviewed in this section, history graduates have the highest proportion studying in the UK for a higher degree (13.2%), in part to meet the academic demands of careers in academia itself, as well as in work as archivists, librarians and museum curators. 9.9% secured employment as business and financial professionals and associate professionals and 17.8% entered professions in marketing, sales and advertising professions and commercial, industrial and public sector management (compared to the national average of 13.9%). This indicates the diversity of roles undertaken on the basis of a history degree as well as the more obvious roles in art, design and culture (4.5%) and education professions (4.1%). These diverse roles have included army officers, commodities traders, parliamentary assistants and city councillors.

Media Studies

Graduates from this discipline were amongst those most likely to go straight into employment (67.1%). However, over a quarter of those were in retail and catering. This highlights some of the challenges involved in securing a career in the media and the need for early career planning and work experience. Nonetheless almost one in five (18.1%) did secure degree related employment in arts, design and culture occupations and many more became business, marketing and management professionals (21.7%).

Languages

These graduates had the highest rate of overseas employment (10.2%), as befits their enhanced language capacity and 36% went straight into business and finance, marketing and management occupations. Almost 28% went on to some form of further study in preparation for careers in journalism, management, translation, the media and teaching. Although the unemployment rate was close to the national average, far fewer language graduates ended up in retail and catering (16.1%). The success of language graduates in obtaining a good level of employment may substantiate the assertion that graduate employers do set a premium on graduates with languages (according to languageswork.org.uk).

Art and Design

Arts and design graduates had one of the highest employment rates of the disciplines reviewed in this section (67.2%) and above the average for all graduates in the 2009/10 cohort (62.2%). A third were employed as arts, design and culture professionals, 8.4% of whom were commercial artists, 3.3% clothing designers and 2.7% graphic artists and designers. 11.3% were unemployed at the time of this survey and almost a quarter were working as retail, catering and bar staff. A large number of the self employed cohort are artists and designers, yet it often takes considerably longer than six months to launch a business requiring a temporary job to provide support in the interim. Amongst graduates who were self employed in the UK six months after graduating, 13.9% were design graduates and 4.6% were fine art graduates.

Salaries

Average salaries for graduates working full time in the UK from these disciplines varied considerably from fine arts graduates earning £11,800 in the North East of England and £17,200 in London. Similar disparities were found amongst language graduates earning £13,400 in Northern Ireland and £26,800 in London. The disparities reflect the type of work undertaken as well as regional variations and are given only as examples. The average salary across all academic disciplines was £19,794.