The ESRC have just published a report on the employment of social science PhDs.
It's an interesting document, building on research such as What Do PhDs Do?, to take a look at the practicalities of employment for doctorates in these subjects - there are estimated to be 20,500 PhD holders in the social sciences in the UK.
The main point is that although the majority work in academia (about 74%, although the researchers do believe they are under-reporting non-academics), business would like to recruit more of them. The common view amongst public (and employers) is that a doctorate is an ivory tower qualification that does not fit anyone for the 'real world', whatever that may be. This report gives the lie to that received opinion.
But it does warn that those employers who do recruit social science PhDs particularly prize project management and leadership skills that are rarely formally developed as part of doctoral training. The same went for other important skills, such as research management, teamworking and entrepreneurial abilities.
Most non-academic employers, in the words of the report,
...did not perceive that they had recruited such employees, and where they did recognise that they had done so, responded that they did not require applicants for those positions to have PhDs, and very often were unable to identify which amongst their employees had such qualifications...
This is rather familiar to those who have studied PhD employment, but more encouraging was the identification of three potential employment niches for social science PhDs - small, specialist research agencies and consultancies (who looked for all round research skills, project management, and interpersonal skills), employers looking for specific technical and analytical skills, such as organisational clinical psychologists or experts in certain HR techniques, and large organisations looking for economists or development experts.
Perhaps most significantly, both PhD holders and employers felt that social science PhDs were under-developed in terms of quantitative and numeracy skills. Food for thought for those academics who deride the quantitative in favour of the qualitative?
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