The 5 Worst Degrees to Graduate With in the UK (According to the Data)

The five worst-paying degrees in the UK

5. Drama

Median salary after five years: £25,600

Drama graduates earn almost £8,000 less than the typical graduate five years after university. One year out, their median earnings are just £18,700, below what a full-time job on the National Living Wage paid that year.

Interestingly, four degrees actually tie on £25,600 at the five-year mark. We separated them by looking at what happens ten years later. Drama graduates reach £29,100, putting them fifth.

Music shares the same five-year earnings figure but performs better over time, reaching £31,300 after ten years.

Part of the explanation is how acting careers work. Short contracts, auditions, part-time teaching and second jobs are common. Longitudinal Education Outcomes data (LEO) doesn't adjust for hours worked, so some of the earnings gap reflects fewer working hours rather than lower hourly pay.

Actors are also no strangers to rejection. An audition is essentially a job application with an audience, and most actors send dozens every season. It's a reminder that finding work is a numbers game, and keeping track of applications can make a real difference.

4. Childhood and youth studies

Median salary after five years: £25,600

Childhood and youth studies ties with drama at five years, but falls further behind over time. Ten years after graduating, median earnings reach just £28,500, the lowest of the four degrees tied at £25,600.

The degree leads into early years, youth work, family support and children's services. These are some of the most important jobs in the country, but unfortunately, they're not particularly well paid.

There's also an important distinction between studying education and qualifying to teach. Teacher training graduates earn £34,400 five years out, nearly £9,000 more, despite often working with the same children.

One surprise is zoology, which also ties at £25,600 after five years. Despite its reputation as a degree with limited career prospects, zoology graduates reach £31,500 after ten years, the strongest of the tied group.

3. Creative writing

Median salary after five years: £25,300

Here's where things get interesting.

Graduates of a general English degree earn £31,100 five years after university. Creative writing graduates earn almost £6,000 less.

They also struggle to get started. 11.1% have no sustained employment or further study five years after graduating, while the median graduate earns just £19,800 after one year.

The problem is partly what the degree prepares you for. Very few writers make a living from books alone, so most need to find other ways to put their writing skills to work.

The graduates who do best often take those skills into more commercially valuable roles: copywriting, content, communications, editing and marketing.

2. Dance

Median salary after five years: £24,500

Dance graduates have the lowest first-year earnings of any degree in the data, with a median of just £16,100. That's around £4,000 below what a full-time National Living Wage job paid that year.

Five years later, the figure reaches £24,500. Ten years later, it's still only £27,400.

The Department for Education also identifies performing arts as the lowest-earning subject area, with dance at the bottom.

Careers in dance are often short, physically demanding and built around temporary contracts. Many graduates eventually move into teaching, choreography or fitness, frequently working part-time or self-employed.

There is one encouraging statistic, though. Just 6.1% of dance graduates have no sustained employment or study five years after graduating. That's lower than most degrees on this list.

Dancers find work. It just doesn't pay particularly well.

1. Art

Median salary after five years: £23,800

Art, predominantly fine art, sadly takes the bottom spot.

A quarter of art graduates earn less than £16,500 five years after university, while more than 11% have no sustained employment or further study.

And things don't improve dramatically with time. Ten years after graduating, the median reaches just £25,300.

The employment picture isn't much better. In HESA's 2023/24 Graduate Outcomes survey, artists were among the graduates least likely to be in full-time employment 15 months after finishing university.

A 2020 Institute for Fiscal Studies study also found that men who study creative arts have negative lifetime financial returns on average, once lost earnings and student loan repayments are considered.

Interestingly, neighbouring subjects perform considerably better. Photography and film graduates earn £26,400, while design graduates earn £28,200 five years out.

It's worth remembering that many artists work freelance or alongside other jobs, and LEO only partly captures self-employment. The true picture is likely somewhat better than these figures suggest.

Just outside the bottom five

A few other degrees narrowly escaped the list:

• Animal science (£26,000): Popular with people hoping to work with animals, but among the lower-paying degrees.
• Health studies (£26,400): Not to be confused with nursing, where subject-area earnings are around £37,300.
• Education studies (£26,700): An academic degree about education, rather than a qualification to teach.
• Media studies (£27,400): Journalism graduates fare slightly better, at £29,600.

The popular degrees that aren't on the list

Psychology and sociology are probably two of the degrees people most expect to find here. Surprisingly, neither comes particularly close.

Both have median earnings of £29,600 five years after graduating, more than £5,000 above art.

And their longer-term prospects are better still. Ten years out, psychology graduates earn £35,100, while sociology graduates reach £34,400.

Their biggest challenge is getting started. Psychology doesn't qualify you as a psychologist without further postgraduate study, while sociology doesn't lead to one obvious profession. Both send large numbers of graduates into an already crowded entry-level job market.

How much does your degree actually matter?

For some perspective, here's how the top and bottom of the table compare.

Five years into a career, the gap between dentistry and art is more than £36,000 a year.

But these figures don't tell the whole story.

• Your university matters. Earnings for the same subject can vary significantly between institutions. Look at the specific course, not just the degree title.
• Your background matters. Some earnings differences reflect prior grades, family circumstances and location, rather than the degree itself.
• The data favours salaried work. LEO doesn't adjust for part-time hours and only partly captures self-employment, which particularly affects creative subjects.
• Averages aren't destinies. A median tells you where the middle of the group ended up. Plenty of graduates earn considerably more.

And perhaps most importantly, enjoying what you do matters. A salary figure can't measure the value of spending three years studying something you genuinely care about.

How to beat the odds and land a graduate job

If your degree is on this list, you're not stuck. But you may have to work harder to stand out in a crowded graduate job market.

Here are four things worth doing.

1. Treat your job search like a pipeline.

Keep track of every application, deadline, follow-up and response. After a month or two, you'll start seeing patterns: which roles respond, which applications lead to interviews and where you're wasting your time.

It's also why we built Jobstead.

Jobstead is a free job application tracker made for students and graduates. It keeps your applications, deadlines, outreach and feedback in one place, while its Chrome extension lets you save jobs from LinkedIn, Indeed and Gradcracker in a single click.

There's a twist: every application grows your own little garden, and every rejection becomes compost for the next seed. Even when the job search isn't going your way, you can see your progress growing.

2. Sell your skills, not just your degree.

Employers hiring for marketing, sales, operations, HR and project management rarely require a particular degree. They want evidence that you can do the job.

A creative writing graduate can demonstrate communication skills. A drama graduate can demonstrate confidence and presentation skills. Think about what your degree has actually taught you, beyond the subject itself.

3. Look beyond obvious job titles.

A drama graduate might be a natural fit for recruitment, sales, training or client-facing roles. A creative writing graduate might make an excellent copywriter.

Don't limit yourself to jobs that sound directly related to your degree. Some of the best opportunities are in industries you might never have considered.

4. Don't wait for the perfect job.

Getting into a role with room to progress is often better than holding out indefinitely for the ideal position. Experience builds, skills develop and opportunities open up.

The important thing is to keep moving.

The bottom line

Your degree might put you at a statistical disadvantage, but it doesn't have to put you at a career disadvantage.

The data can tell you which degrees tend to pay less. It can't tell you who will build a successful business, become an exceptional artist or find a career they genuinely love.

If you chose your degree because you loved the subject, you don't owe anyone an apology.

You just have a different challenge now: work out what those three years made you good at, find the people who need those skills, and get yourself in front of them.

It might take 50 applications instead of five. That's fine. Just make sure you're learning something from each one.

Your degree might shape where you start. It doesn't decide where you finish.