What Can I Do With a Masters in Criminology?

Some jobs you can get with a Masters in Criminology include criminologist, crime analyst, police officer and probation officer. The highest paying job for criminology postgraduates would be police sergeant, with an average salary of £47,888/$80,927 per year. Criminologists (the specific job title) are not currently in great demand, but a Masters in Criminology can be applied to various careers related to crime, which often are in demand.

My research suggests that one ‘career’ you could go into with a Masters in Criminology is as a master criminal. Legally speaking, I can’t recommend this…and even if I could, I can’t look up the salary online. I mean, it’s like being self-employed, right? Kind of like an author, except you’re authoring grand heists. Still, the work culture probably isn’t the best, you won’t get dental insurance included and you might end up in jail. So maybe don’t do that.

Thankfully, despite being keyed into the criminal mind with this postgraduate degree, you have quite a few options when it comes to careers you can tell your grandma about. Anything involving crime is on the table, and since crime is affected by (and affects) quite a lot of things in society, criminology postgrads can end up in some unexpected careers. Obviously ‘criminologist’ isn’t one of them, but you get the idea.

So, let’s line up our suspects. I’ll go through some common jobs for criminologist postgrads, both directly related and indirectly related, and I’ll even throw in some salary info. If you want to make a daring escape from criminology jail, I’ll also list some transferable skills you might want for your CV.

Oh, and if anyone asks, I didn’t tell you any of this, okay? I don’t want the cops on me for giving good postgraduate advice (always a danger).

Masters in Criminology jobs (directly related)

Criminologist/social science researcher

Average starting salary: £24,000 / $48,961

Duties: research the reasons people commit crime, advise policy makers in the justice and policing system, analyse data from surveys and surveillance to spot trends.

Note: These are typically government roles. Non-government roles may be available at institutions like universities, but those may require a PhD. Watch out for that.

Crime analyst/criminal intelligence analyst

Average starting salary: £20,000 / $68,153

Duties: provide proactive warnings and guidance on upcoming threats, analyse online criminal networks using specialised software, support investigations and any operational activities.

Police officer

Average starting salary: £30,000 / $56,410

Duties: respond to calls for help from the public, investigate incidents, crimes and offences, interview suspects and make arrests.

Note: some police officers complete Masters in Criminology on the job to improve their chances of promotion. Probably worth considering the timing of your Masters if you want to join the police force, in that case.

Probation officer

Average starting salary: £24,000 / $51,564

Duties: interview offenders before sentencing or parole, make sure offenders attend supervision appointments and rehabilitation programmes, run programmes designed to change offenders’ behaviour.

Cybercrime investigator

Average starting salary: £30,273 / $57,894

Duties: analyse computer systems and networks following a crime, recover data that was either destroyed or damaged, reconstruct cyberattacks.

Fraud investigator/counter fraud investigator

Average starting salary: £25,283 / $50,050

Duties: maintain case files and produce investigation plans, take evidential notes and write witness statements, categorise fraud and report the outcome with recommendations.

Masters in Criminology jobs (indirectly related)

Research analyst

Average starting salary: £28,799 / $68,082

Duties: conduct data collection and analysis, undertake market research, create strategic recommendations.

Data analyst

Average starting salary: £23,000 / $65,302

Duties: create data dashboards, graphs and visualisations, identify areas to increase efficiency and optimise data collection processes, monitor and audit data quality and ensure data quality standards

Social worker

Average starting salary: £32,000 / $50,870

Duties: meet individuals and families to review their needs and make support plans, give emotional and practical support to clients, keep clients safe and take action to protect them when necessary.

Note: typically a Masters in Social Work (MSW) would be a more common route into this role.

Policy analyst

Average starting salary: £32,465 / $66,064

Duties: analyse data and interpret research findings, write policy proposals, develop performance indicators and evaluations for new policies.

Transferable skills for a Masters in Criminology

Here are some transferable skills which you will typically gain from studying a Masters in Criminology:

• Research skills
• Ability to argue and present a case
• Critical thinking and critical analysis
• Problem solving
• Generating and evaluating evidence

Many Masters in Criminology also offer the chance to specialise in a specific area of criminology, so depending on your specialism, you may pick up a few more transferable skills and knowledge. For example, if your focus included youth offending, you might find that insight extremely valuable as a teacher.

Tips from the author

#1 Research visa and job markets ahead of time

If you’re intending to study a highly specialised pathway that has more jobs abroad than in your home country, I’d highly recommend getting the scoop on how likely you are to get sponsored (if required). The unfortunate reality is that firms will typically prefer domestic applicants if there are plenty of domestic applicants to go around, so make sure you know what you’re getting into.

#2 Check out government programmes (if available)

Occasionally, you may find governments running specialised schemes dedicated to bringing in more social science researchers. On the UK side, there’s the Government Social Research Fast Stream, which has a lower grade requirement if you’ve studied a postgraduate degree (a 2:2 rather than a 2:1). These may be harder to find in the USA at the moment, but it’s worth keeping an eye out regardless. You might want to consider a Google Alert to stay in the loop.

#3 You don’t need a Masters in Criminology for most of the roles above (typically)

With that said, that’s not going to be true for all job listings for those roles, and it’s typically considered beneficial for your application if it’s in a relevant specialisation. If you already have a role in mind, I’d highly recommend you scout around for some job listings to see how useful a Masters in Criminology is likely to be. If the answers is ‘not massively’, and you don’t have other reasons to do a Masters, it might be worth having another think.

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