Within a few months of leaving university, all but 6% of history graduates have some form of employment, broadly in line with the average across all degree subjects. These are often temporary jobs that do not require a degree qualification. The main areas of employment six months after graduation are, in descending order:
Clerical and secretarial Commercial,
Retail assistants,
Business and finance,
Marketing/sales PR and advertising,
Clerks and cashiers,
Nursing,
IT,
Armed forces/public profession services,
Industrial public sector,
Catering, waiting and bar staff,
Other professional and technical,
Creative/design/ports professionals,
Health and childcare,
Teaching,
Engineering.
However, a history degree is a sound basis for further career development and 30% of its graduates pursue a postgraduate qualification (well ahead of the average of 19% across all subjects) in vocational subjects such as law, accountancy, journalism, librarianship, teaching and IT.
By three years after graduation most history graduates are in more settled employment, in jobs that require their degree and in which they are using skills acquired in the course of their studies. Those who took a postgraduate qualification will be joining the professions for which they have trained. Only 2% will still be unemployed. Hence, although a history degree is not job specific, its graduates have the skills that enable them to pursue a multiplicity of careers demanding a wide range of talents, and they do so extremely successfully in an open and competitive jobs market. This success can be illustrated with examples of those who have achieved fame in their chosen careers.
Key positions in the media have been colonised by historians. They have a penchant for sports journalism - practitioners include the BBC TV correspondents, Jonathan Legard, Martin Tyler and John Inverdale and the Radio 5 Live presenters Alan Green and Simon Mayo, previously a Radio 1 DJ. In addition, there are several history graduates in the entertainment media, such as Louis Theroux and Jonathan Ross, and the children's TV presenters Simon Thomas and Timmy Mallett. There are also many academic historians who front or appear in programmes that popularise history, such as The History Hunters and Time Team. Among the best known are Michael Wood, David Starkey and Simon Schama. Keeping a watchful eye on much of this activity is Suzanne Warner, Deputy Chair of the Broadcasting Standards Commission.
"Although a history degree is not job specific, its graduates have the skills that enable them to pursue a multiplicity of careers demanding a wide range of talents, and they do so extremely successfully in an open and competitive jobs market."
Many historians have attained distinction in politics and at least four historians have become bishops (Blackburn, Guildford, London and Norwich). There are also a significant number of lawyers whose first degree is in history, including several barristers.
Some occupations have a more organic connection to a history education. Many history graduates become teachers, and some go on to become headteachers. The number of historians who have become university vice-chancellors is considerably larger than would be produced by a proportionate distribution across all disciplines. While it would be absurd to claim that the managerial skills required for these positions were inculcated through first-degree education, nevertheless the capacity of historians to attain such high positions in statistically significant ways says something about their all-round abilities.
A history degree has also been a natural passport to service in the museums, libraries and arts. Three names are especially well-known here: Sir Roy Strong, former Director of the Victoria and Albert; John Tusa, formerly of the BBC but now Managing Director at the Barbican Centre; and Sarah Tyacke, Keeper at the Public Records Office.
Many history graduates have attained distinction in the arts, notably as writers. Good writing is a quality highly prized by historians. I am not concerned with the many authors of academic history, nor with its popularisers, though Andrew Morton, the biographer of royalty, should perhaps be mentioned if only to show that it is possible to make a good living in this way. Rather, the focus here is on creative writing where there are some 'big names' - the novelists Penelope Lively, Salman Rushdie and the late Anthony Powell, the playwright Howard Barker and the poet Wendy Cope. There are, predictably, fewer historians in the creative field of music. Nevertheless, and covering the range from classical to popular, we have the tenor Ian Bostridge, and Neil Tennant, lead singer of the Pet Shop Boys and perhaps the most famous of history's 'popstars'.
This facility to reach the top through the application of diverse skills is reaffirmed by the success of historians in business and finance. They have in significant numbers become company directors, chief executives and managing directors, e-commerce millionaires, chief accountants, directors of strategic development, heads of personnel and of human resources, fund managers, management consultants, chief financial officers, presidents and vice-presidents, directors of sales and marketing, company secretaries and so forth. Many work for large and long-established companies; others are managing directors or partners in companies that they established. A few examples will have to suffice.
- Gerald Corbett is chairman of Woolworths.
- Anthony Hudson is a former chairman of ICI.
- Sir Bob Reid, deputy governor of the Bank of Scotland.
- Lord Sainsbury is president of the family supermarket business.
- Professor Sir Roland Smith has held many directorships and consultancies,
including director of the Bank of England, and is currently Chancellor of UMIST and chairman of Manchester United plc.
- Anita Roddick, the Body Shop entrepreneur;
- Isabel Maxwell, daughter of the late newspaper baron.
This is just a small sample. It may surprise you to learn that historians do, in fact, provide more directors of Britain's leading companies in proportion to the number of graduates than any other subject, outperforming law, science and engineering.
Historians have always made a virtue of the importance of reaching objective judgements based upon wide reading and an understanding of a multiplicity of oft-conflicting sources, together with the ability to write clear, literate, synoptic, analytical prose that represents a balanced assessment of the evidence but which does not fight shy of drawing conclusions. A history training therefore imparts vital transferable skills, extremely useful in many jobs.
A history degree undoubtedly provides an opening to a wide range of careers and its graduates have risen to the very top of many professions and to key positions in civil society. A truly remarkable number have gone on to become the movers-and-shakers of modern-day Britain. Many important jobs are within the grasp of historians. With a history degree you can aspire to be prime minister, press baron and media mogul, overlord of the BBC, famous lawyer, archbishop of Canterbury, top diplomat, Oxbridge vice-chancellor, England footballer (Steve Coppell) or chairman of the richest football club in the world, famous comedian or celebrated pop musician, best-selling novelist, trade union boss, business millionaire, and perhaps even, one day, monarch of the realm, for Prince Charles too is a history graduate. For real!
