What can you do with a psychology degree?
Our essential guide to what you will learn during a psychology course, what you should study to get your place on a degree, and what jobs you could get once you graduate
- Guides
Share
In this article, we will be outlining the jobs and careers that you can pursue once you have studied a psychology degree. This article will share the job roles, industries and career paths that a psychology graduate can take.
This article will cover:
Examples of jobs you can do with a psychology degree
Psychology graduates can go on to work in many job roles, including:
- Clinical psychologist
- Counselling psychologist
- Education mental health practitioner
- Educational psychologist
- Forensic psychologist
- Teacher
- Health psychologist
- Therapist
- Occupational psychologist
- Sport and exercise psychologist
- Careers and advice adviser
- Chaplain/counsellor
- Life coach
- Mediator
- Neuroscientist
- Psychotherapist
- Social researcher
- HR manager
What is psychology?
Psychology is the study of the mind and human behaviour. The subject is about how those around us think, what kind of feelings they experience, how they act and interact, and what motivates them. Psychology students learn to comprehend why people act in a certain way, how they respond to the world around them and which key factors might affect this. These might be social, biological, cognitive or emotional.
It is through scientific methods that psychologists explain our behaviour. Knowing what to look for, they examine, test and make use of statistics to find patterns. But rather than just explain human behaviour, psychologists use their expertise to offer support and generate positive change.
More information on what psychology is can be found here.
Who employs psychology graduates?
Due to the analytical and communication skills that psychology graduates develop throughout their degree, companies across a range of industries would be likely to hire psychology graduates.
Examples of companies include:
- Healthcare trusts and hospitals
- Schools and universities
- Financial organisations
- Technology companies
- Media and publishing houses
- Human resources departments
- Social services
- Local and national government departments
- Legal firms
Industries where psychology graduates work
While many graduates will end up in an industry that is directly related to psychology such as healthcare, education, social services, counselling and research, some will end up in an industry that isn’t linked to psychology as the skills and knowledge acquired during a psychology degree can be adapted to many different job roles.
A small percentage of psychology graduates work in the commercial and industrial industries or go into the public sector. A slightly lower proportion go into business, human resources and finance, marketing, sales and public relations.
Although most graduates do not become chartered psychologists, this is not to say that they don’t make use of what they have learned over the course of their degree.
Is a psychology degree worth it?
When choosing a degree subject, you will likely want to know how it will help you once you graduate.
A psychology degree is versatile and the skills developed can be translated to most career paths.
There isn’t really a typical career path that a psychology student would naturally follow. Many graduates may go on to further study that can help them to enter a specific career such as a law conversion course to become a lawyer or a master’s in counselling or social work to go into those fields.
Other graduates may go straight into jobs in sectors that are directly linked to their degrees such as education and healthcare.
Some graduates may choose to go on to further study within the field of psychology, undertaking a master’s to either pursue a career in academia or pursue a more specialist career such as a child psychologist.
Typical salaries for psychology graduates
Salaries can vary between the different industries that psychology graduates choose to go into. Qualified therapists and counsellors can earn between £30,000 and £40,000 a year, while the starting salary for a teacher can be £31,650, but this varies by location and will increase as individuals progress through their career.
Starting salaries for HR roles can be about £20,000.
Typical skills gained from a psychology degree
Psychology students will gain many skills that are considered attractive to future employers.
Due the analytical nature of the subject, psychology graduates will develop their critical thinking skills. Many psychology students will have to write essays and create presentations as part of their assessments, thus developing their spoken and written communication skills.
The final project for many psychology students will be a research project, which will develop research skills.
Psychology is a unique subject that both develops numerical skills through analysing data and deciphering graphs and charts as well as developing literacy skills through essay writing and research.
Psychology students will also develop many skills that will help them to thrive in the workplace such as teamwork, time management and cultural sensitivity.
Further study
As has been mentioned before, a number of psychology students go into further study. This can be divided into two categories.
The first is a further degree or programme which will train them for a specific career. Some may be linked to psychology such as a master’s in social work or counselling. Postgraduate study is compulsory for those who want to become a chartered psychologist.
Others may not be related to psychology. This could be a law conversion course to become a lawyer, a master’s in social work or counselling, or a teacher training degree to become a teacher.
The second category are those students who wish to deepen their knowledge of the subject. They may choose to study a master’s in a specific area of psychology such as social psychology, forensic psychology or business psychology. These master’s degrees can then support a student to pursue a career that is linked to these areas such as working as a social worker or working in the police force.
There are then students who will choose to pursue a PhD in an area of psychology that they are most interested in and will continue on to become an academic.
Famous people who studied psychology
One of the most famous public figures to study psychology in recent years is actor Natalie Portman who completed her undergraduate degree at Harvard University. Other Hollyword figures who have studied psychology at university include producer Jerry Bruckheimer, director Wes Craven, actor Marcia Cross and Jon Stewart, the comedian and former presenter of The Daily Show.
Well-known psychology graduates from the music industry include Gloria Estefan, the singer, and Lil Wayne, the hip-hop artist.
Guy Kawasaki, Apple’s former chief evangelist, best known for marketing the first Macintosh, also studied psychology. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg studied psychology, along with computer science, but he dropped out of university during the second year of his degree in order to devote his time to setting up the social network.
Related degrees
Psychology is an unusual subject in that it straddles both the arts and the sciences. Its study into human behaviours has overlaps with sociology and anthropology, while the study into the pathways of the human brain is similar to neuroscience.
Other degrees that are related to psychology are criminology, biology, maths and philosophy. Most subjects that study human behaviours and the biology behind them will have links with subjects that are covered within a psychology degree.
