English

There are many career options open to English graduates, from creative roles to less obvious careers that may not have previously occurred to you. The Careers Service can help you to make the best choices for you and to formulate a plan to get you started on your chosen career path. The Careers Adviser responsible for your department is Kate Murray and you can contact her via kate.murray@kcl.ac.uk.

What can I do with an English degree?

English graduates enter a wide variety of occupations on graduation. Typically, we’re asked about roles in creative industries such as advertising, PR, media and marketing. Also popular are careers in the Civil Service Fast Stream, graduate training schemes and professions like law and marketing. The destinations information of previous King’s English students below gives a flavour of some of the less obvious career choices too. One of these may be right for you.

You can read some suggestions from a panel of speakers we invited to talk about careers with an English degree.

What do I need to do now?

Knowing where to start can be difficult and that’s where we come in. We can help you identify where you are and the decisions you need to make and come up with a plan. This might mean researching more occupations or perhaps understanding what employers are looking for and how to market yourself.

Equally, it may mean exploring what you mean by creative work or “using your English degree” or understanding why you’re considering further study.

Are there any deadlines I should work to?

Taking practical steps such as internships or vacation work throughout your degree can really help. Deadlines apply for some schemes and also for some of the graduate posts or further study options you may wish to consider. These deadlines are often early in your final year of study so seeing us in your second year can be very helpful.

How do I find out more?

Here’s just a few of the services for English students

Find out what employers and alumni are saying by attending our events
Attend specialist events at King’s such as the Media Forum, Human Rights Forum, Policy Forum
JobOnline and International JobOnline provide details of part time, vacation, internships and graduate opportunities. These include the less obvious options that aren’t really covered in the standard publications. Through JobOnline you can also sign up for the Alert email service giving you access to additional jobs and news.

Get someone to one help

Speak to one of our careers advisers. We can help you talk through any further study or time out you are considering. We can help you draft or improve your CV, prepare for interview and research opportunities. You can also talk to our Information Officers about how to find the latest information on career options, and use the wide-ranging resources of the Careers Information Library in the Macadam Building to help you with your research.

Online resources

Use CareersTagged. CareersTagged is the new social bookmarking tool for locating all kinds of career related resources – job profiles, professional bodies, directories, journals, books, courses, vacancies, etc. Type in a "tag" to find the subject; combine tags to refine your selection; click through to resources; add your own "tags" and comments. CareersTagged is more than a search engine because each item is described so you know what you're going to look at.
Use Prospects website for ideas on "options with your subject".
Insitute of Practitioners in Advertising - professional body with useful information for anyone interested in advertising careers
Chartered Institute of Marketing - the professional body for marketing careers.
The Publishers’ Association - another trade body with careers information.
Civil Service Fast Stream - the recruitment site for anyone interested in the accelerated route to Civil Service management
National Government Development Programme - the graduate entry route to careers in local authorities.
Eldis a good site for information on careers in Development

Alumni destinations

Here are some examples of what King's graduates in English go on to do, based on the annual survey conducted about six months after graduation.

Undergraduates

Fundraiser – Childline.
Legal Researcher – SJ Berwin.
Events Co-ordinator – Gestalt Centre.
Speech Therapy Assistant – RNIB.
Administration Officer – Camden Council.
PG Diploma in Magazine Journalism – City Univ.
MA Linguistics – UCL.
PGCE English & Drama – Institute of Education.
Marketing Officer – Broxbourne Leisure Organisation.
Travel Section Assistant – The Independent.
Data & Research Assistant – Globe Publishing.
Singer/Musician – Dripseed.
Magazine Assistant – IPC Media.
MA European Literary & Historical Studies – King's.
PG Diploma in Law – BPP Law School.
House Care Assistant – Woking Community Hospital.
Production Assistant – Sonia Friedman Productions.
MA Musical Theatre – Central School of Speech & Drama.
Teaching Assistant – Queen’s Park School.
PG Diploma in Broadcasting – Westminster Univ.

Postgraduates

Operations Assistant – Shakespeare’s Globe.
Deputy Chief Executive – Power Advocacy Agency.
English Teacher – Parliament Hill School.
PhD American Literature – King's.
PhD Early Modern English Literature – King's.
PhD American Poetry – Leicester University.
Administration Officer – DEFRA.
Critic – Times Literary Supplement.
Education Associate – National Theatre.
Production Manager – CI UK.

National trends

English graduates enter a wide range of professional areas. The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) collects annually national first destination information on higher degree graduates. For more details and results from the survey, see 'What do graduates do?" on the Prospects website.