A degree in English Studies will equip you for a wide variety of professions and employment, as well as for advanced postgraduate study of English and related disciplines.
81% of our 2023-24 BA English Literature graduates secured employment or went on to further study 15 months after graduating (source: HESA Graduate Outcomes). Many continue to study with us for a postgraduate qualification, taking advantage of our Durham alumni tuition fees discount.
English Literature equips students with many transferrable as well as subject-specific skills, so it's unsurprising that students advance into a wide variety of professions such as media, law, and publishing, but also translate their specialism into sectors like video games design, management consultancy, or arts organisations. This is also why English will be a robust degree for the future, even as AI changes the landscape of jobs.
I am a Graduate Trainee at Christie’s in London. English in particular is a very independent degree and managing my research, especially when writing my dissertation, taught me how to manage my time efficiently. Being able to digest large amounts of information and then translate them into my own research is an essential part of my role and the workload at Durham prepared me well.
Career preparation is embedded both in teaching and ongoing induction, so that our students are able to demonstrate Durham's seven graduate attributes.
Our teaching and assessments equip students with transferrable skills, such as critical thinking and creativity; employers predict these will be more not less important in the future of jobs. As well as writing and preparing essays which develop independent research and literacy, students may explore different types of career-relevant assessments, such as building websites about online publishing, analysing literary datasets, or producing podcasts or videos.
Our Careers and Enterprise service offer a range of talks each year, and also support placement opportunities.
We also draw on our extensive alumni networks, and invite former students to explain the steps they took to move from their degree to work.
This 2025 talk featured three alumni, who shared their tips on getting into careers in PR, marketing and media. Charlotte Hall now works for Penguin, Sunita Ramani runs PR for environmental charities, and Sherihan Al-Akhras is a reporter and producer for BBC News.
In 2026 we heard from four graduates who work in various aspects of the creative industries: Susanna Lazarus, Head of Creative Sectors at DCMS; Lisa Benson, British Embassy; Nina Sprange, Warner Brothers; Emma Youles, Flightstory.
The below infographic illustrates more generally the graduate-level positions into which our recent English students have progressed, according to our alumni surveys. However, this only covers early-career jobs; over the lifetime of a career, English skills are highly flexible and allow graduates to adapt to the changing economy, move between professions, and to progress in their chosen pathways. This is one reason why English is joint fourth in terms of annual average wage growth, at 6.2%, compared to Physics (5.9%), Business (5.8%) and psychology (5.6%).
I'm now working as a trainee sports reporter with MailOnline/the Daily Mail after completing my News Associates studies. Studying literature provides you with interesting frames for thinking about the world we live in; you might, for example, draw parallels between Shakespearean plays and the current political landscape, or between ancient tragedies and the emotional rollercoaster of sport.
That English students can succeed in a varied range of professions today is not surprising - and because English develops underlying skills and aptitudes rather than specific vocational abilities, it is a future-proof degree as well.
In a world that is rapidly changing through technologies like AI, it is hard to predict what jobs will be needed in future.
In 2023 the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs report identifies the skills that are rising in importance and likely to be needed five years ahead. Here are their top 5 - and our thoughts on how English equips students with these.
I am now an Account Manager at Greenhouse Communications – a PR and communications agency that supports businesses, organisations and activists to tackle the climate crisis and drive positive environmental change.
Currently I am doing a law conversion master’s course in London on the journey to becoming a solicitor. My undergraduate degree has been extremely helpful in the skills I’ve developed – skills that have transferred comfortably into the work that I do now. My written communication is excellent, I am proficient in analysing texts for the benefit of convincing and logically based arguments, and generally a confidence in my work that I can take to any job or application that come my way.
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