What Are the Top-Paying Masters Degree Subjects?

There all sorts of reasons to consider postgraduate study, but improving your earnings is definitely one of them. We've looked before at whether people with a Masters earn more than people with a Bachelors (it seems that they do). I'm going to take a slightly different approach with this blog and look more closely at the postgraduate subjects with the highest starting salaries.

In order to do this properly though, we need to be really clear about what this list is based on. There's information on that at the end of the blog. Please read it. In fact, read it first.

With that said, which Masters degrees have the best earnings potential, according to the available data? Let's go through them, step by step:

10th – Materials and Technology

Median salary (five years after graduation): £36,200

In our heavily consumerist society, it's no suprise that a Masters in Materials and Technology could secure a well-paying job. Gaining extensive understanding of common materials can help improve products for use and sustainability. In order to stay competitive, companies are willing to reward useful expertise.

Median salary (five years after graduation): £36,300

A Masters in Politics leads to obvious careers in government, policy-making or even journalism. The versatility of the degree is what makes it a benefitial option for future careers. Providing you with the soft skills to understand complex organisations and theories, it's no suprise Politics graduates do so well for themselves.

Median salary (five years after graduation): £38,400

Careers related to medicine are typically well paid and these subjects have a broad professional focus, placing them second in our top ten.

Masters degrees in Pharmacy (dispensing drugs and medications) and Pharmacology (the development and analysis of potential drugs and medications) lead to obvious careers in industrial science as well as work in retail pharmacies or in healthcare provision. Toxicology Masters offer a more specialised route into related careers.

Median salary (five years after graduation): £39,300

A Masters in Mathematical Sciences is a versatile qualification with lots of different potential applications, from big data and statistics to insurance and risk management. I suppose you could say that these opportunities all add up to a Masters with impressive earning potential (sorry).

Median salary (five years after graduation): £39,700

Engineering produces graduates who are versatile thinkers, able to apply more theoretical scientific and technical knowledge to real-world problems. You probably already know that if you're considering a Masters degree in Engineering, but it's good to know that these skills and qualifications are professionally rewarded. Again, this is also another area where postgraduate specialisation has obvious value – and it shows.

Median salary (five years after graduation): £40,900

The data underpinning this list includes self-employed workers, so it's no surprise to see that the subject most associated with entrepreneurship is also one of the most successful for postgraduate earnings. Masters in Business and Management are likely to be taken both by established professionals and students at the beginning of their career, so this subject encompasses a broad base of people.

Median salary (five years after graduation): £41,900

To say that Computer Science degrees are going to be in demand feels kind of obvious. I mean, they were in demand throughout the development of home computer technology, internet technology, e-commerce, videogaming... They'll presumably continue to be in demand during the further development of AI, machine learning and whatever comes next (machines learning how to play videogames on home computers hooked up to the internet as part of a new e-commerce business?).

This is also an area where the potential for specialisation at postgrad level is pretty clear, as proven by the fact that we list more than a thousand Masters degrees in Computer Science.

Median salary (five years after graduation): £42,500

The hard work that goes into studying medical subjects to postgraduate level seems to be well rewarded and it looks like a Masters degree in Medicine & Dentistry could leave you with a healthy salar... Nope, I'm not going to do it.

Median salary (five years after graduation): £45,600

In second place, we have Masters degrees in Economics. This probably won’t come as a huge surprise, given some of the lucrative careers that this subject can lead to: investment banking, fintech and corporate finance, to name just a few.

Median salary (five years after graduation): £64,500

Okay, I know that an MBA isn’t strictly a subject (and we’ve covered Business and Management further up this list). But with more than a £10,000 margin between the median earnings for this qualification and the nearest competitor, it’s worthy of an entry in its own right.

The MBA’s impressive earnings potential is mainly a result of the entry requirements for this kind of qualification – such programmes are usually taken by established business professionals with extensive employment experience. An MBA is basically designed for senior professionals looking to boost their leadership credentials, so it stands to reason that they’ll be earning an impressive salary five years down the line.

I'm glad you asked! Because the answer is important.

This blog uses the UK Government's Postgraduate Longitudinal Educational Outcomes data (LEO, for short) showing earnings in the 2021/22 tax year for people who graduated with a Masters level qualification (including MBAs, PGCEs, etc, but not PhDs or other doctorates) five years before. This is historical data. It shows you what people have earned with a Masters in your subject, not what you will earn with a Masters in your subject.

It also doesn't show the difference between individual courses in your subject, the impact of a graduate's background, social circumstances and personality or whether some people choose a job with a slightly lower salary because that's, you know, the thing they actually want to do with their degree.

Finally, these figures are based on UK students, graduating from UK universities and going on to work in the UK. The numbers would likely be different for people graduating and / or working in other countries.

Basically, it's real data, based on real earnings for real people, but it's not perfect and you should only use it as a rough guide.

See our guides to postgraduate employability and the most employable subjects for more information.

Editor's note: This blog was first published on 10/10/19. We've checked and updated it for current readers.

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