From facilitation and group work skills, developing excellent verbal and written communication skills (including writing for technical and lay audiences), to IT and numeracy skills, anthropology graduates are well-equipped to make significant contributions from their first day of employment. The practical application of anthropology through fieldwork opens the way to opportunities in sectors as diverse as international development, agriculture, health and social work. As a result, anthropologists are well-placed to choose from careers in many different fields.

Politics, advocacy and policy environments

With their cross-cultural expertise, anthropologists are highly sought after in the international arena, working for governmental bodies such as the UK Government’s Department for International Development (DfID) or intergovernmental organisations such as the United Nations, and non-governmental organisations like Action Aid and Oxfam. These bodies seek expertise about human behaviour, particularly human responses to major world challenges, such as endemic poverty, climate change and global health.

Health

Anthropologists study the complex interaction of biology and society, identifying the conditions that underlie the poor health of many people worldwide. Anthropologists also play a key role keeping track of the implications of new health technologies on communities, finding opportunities in academia, biotechnology development and again, NGOs.

Business

Anthropology is the study of how people behave together and so, has many applications in the business world. Knowledge of human behaviour has a range of implications for marketing, business-to-business communications and social networking in particular, where anthropologists are employed to study the connectivity of people on social networking websites, how this affects commercial behaviour and how this behaviour spreads.

Postgraduate opportunities

Around 20 per cent of our undergraduate students go on to further study, mostly following research-based programmes such as MPhils and PhDs, but also including taught-based Master's programmes and applied programmes like PGCEs.

As an anthropology undergraduate, you will develop a range of skills that will open up a spectrum of career paths to you. However, you might want to develop your skills and specialist knowledge further with a postgraduate programme.