Which Jobs Require a Masters Degree in the UK?

Jobs in the UK that require a Masters degree include university lecturer, organisational psychologist, epidemiologist and nursing practitioner, among others. Education, healthcare and psychology are a few industries where Masters degrees are more often required. You can find jobs that require a Masters on job boards like Indeed.

A long, long time ago (back when we were still hitting each other with rocks, I think), you could probably turn up for a job and jump straight into work. In our more modern world, where we hit each other with bits of metal going very fast, we have something much more nightmarish: educational requirements.

I’m sure you’ve seen these requirements a lot more with jobs that need an undergraduate degree, but there are jobs that require a Masters, too. These are typically roles that need very specific knowledge that only a Masters can provide, so there aren’t that many of them.

We can also get a bit lost in the terminology if we aren’t careful. If we expand ‘jobs that require a Masters degree’ to ‘jobs that require a postgraduate qualification’, that opens us up somewhat. I’ll go through both in this article, along with some jobs where a Masters degree is preferred but not required. I’ll be linking to actual job profiles, too, so you can have confidence I’m not making things up.

Oh, and I’ll also be focussing on the UK job market in this article. Jobs can have different educational requirements in different countries, so I need to narrow things down so this article isn’t about 12,000 words long. I’m Morgan James, not MorganGPT.

Jobs you need a Masters degree for

University lecturer

You need to be extremely knowledgeable on your subject to be a university lecturer, so it should come as no surprise that a Masters degree or a PhD is a requirement. Bear in mind that these positions are highly competitive, so if you are aiming for this position, you’ll need an extremely strong academic record. I would avoid assassinating any currently tenured staff, no matter how tempting it might be.

Occupational/organisational psychologist

Organisational/organisational psychologists work with businesses to improve working conditions and job satisfaction with the power of psychology (I assume that’s the brainier cousin to the power of love). You’ll need an undergraduate degree, a Masters in Occupational Psychology and a further Qualification in Occupational Psychology to become accredited, so it’s a pretty involved process (about six years of training).

Family and systemic psychotherapist

Also from the field of psychology we have the family and systemic psychotherapist. Your job (if you choose to accept it) would be helping families and other groups to treat psychological and relationship problems. To become one, you’ll need a Masters degree or PhD recognised by the Association for Family Therapy and Systemic Practice (AFT). If Game of Thrones had one of these, I imagine the series would have been considerably shorter (or feature a very short lived psychotherapist).

Epidemiologist

Epidemiologists are experts at disease research, so if you want to count yourself among them, you’ll need a relevant Masters degree (typically a Masters in Public Health). Considering we had a pandemic on our hands not too long ago (you may have heard about it), that does seem like a pretty handy skillset to have nowadays.

Nursing practitioner

You don’t need a Masters to be a registered nurse, but you’ll typically need a Masters in Nursing to be a nursing practitioner/advanced practice nurse (a kind of nurse with more autonomy in treating patients, basically). You’ll typically need a Masters in Nursing to be a director of nursing, too, as well as considerable gumption (not a direct quote from a job advert, but it should be).

Honourable mention: most research roles

If you’re looking at becoming a research scientist (or another kind of technical research-heavy role), you’ll need to complete a Masters degree, typically an MRes of some kind. The reason I’m leaving this as an honourable mention is that you’ll typically complete a PhD as well, which will somewhat supersede your Masters when it comes to qualifications for those roles.

Jobs that require a postgraduate degree (but not a Masters)

Barrister

If you were wondering why law hadn’t appeared in this article yet, now you know why. Barristers give advice to solicitors and represent people in disagreements, investigations and in court, and to become one, you’ll need to complete the Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC). That’s after you’ve completed either an undergraduate law degree or a Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) conversion course, so it’s definitely a postgraduate only job.

If you prefer to bash on your desk dramatically and shout objection (that’s what solicitors do, right?), you need to complete the Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE). You don’t need to complete a postgraduate degree for that…but the reason I bring it up is that you used to complete the Legal Practice Course (LPC) instead. That makes it the first job on this list that got un-postgraduated, which is a word I just made up. Odd.

Honourable mention: school teacher

You need something called ‘Qualified Teacher Status’ to become a school teacher. A lot of folks get this through a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE), which is a postgraduate course that helps undergraduates become teachers. You don’t need to get have a PGCE to be a teacher, though, so I’m leaving this as an honourable mention (even though it’s a very typical route).

Jobs where a Masters degree is very helpful

Having a Masters degree is especially helpful for getting ‘professional occupations’ (see our Masters employability guide for more info on that). Considering this category has a lot of jobs in it, I’ll just go over examples that are especially noteworthy.

Managing director/CEO

If you want to become a managing director/CEO, you don’t need an MBA. With that said, it’s a qualification that’s always good to have when applying for these kinds of roles, and could very well give you the edge over your competition.

Urban/town planner

If you’re a big fan of games like SimCity and Cities: Skylines, you might find a career as an urban/town planner appealing. You don’t need a Masters in Urban Planning to become one, but depending on who you want to work for, you may find the job description lists it as a requirement (and even if not, it’s still helpful).

Engineer

There are a good few Masters degrees around engineering, which naturally includes the helpfully named Masters in Engineering (MEng). Depending on what kind of engineering you want to go into, you absolutely don’t need a Masters degree to get a job. However, if you’re interested in the R&D side of things, a Masters degree will be very helpful. Common wisdom is that it’ll improve your salary prospects, too, but perhaps you prefer uncommon wisdom instead (if so, maybe check downvoted Reddit posts if you dare).

Tips from the author

#1 Do your research on job board sites

If you’re really set on a particular role, there’s no better research you can do than on job boards. Whether it’s LinkedIn, Indeed or something else, have a poke around to see how many adverts for that role have a Masters degree as a requirement. If it’s either all of them or a very high percentage, that’s your cue to get studying!

#2 Work experience is still extremely valuable

For the fields where a Masters degree is helpful but not essential, there’s also the balance of work experience vs education. Even if you have a postgraduate degree, if you’re against someone with a Bachelors who has more work experience, it’s quite possible they’ll still have the edge. With that in mind, any chance you have to develop your work experience during your degree should be grabbed with both hands (or your preferred grabbing appendages).

#3 Keep the competitiveness of the role in mind

I’ve listed some roles here that require a Masters degree, but those roles are often highly competitive. That means that even with a Masters degree, you aren’t guaranteed to get the role you want, even with a good grade. In those cases, tip #2 is essential, along with tempering your expectations. Diligence (and luck) are still big factors for landing that dream job.

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