Impactful jobs for history degree graduates

Considering a history degree, currently studying, or already graduated? This guide will take you through some of the most promising career paths you could enter with a background in history.

These aren’t just any careers. At Probably Good, we believe your career is one of the most significant opportunities you have to make a positive difference. With this in mind, in this article we’ll explore some of the most impactful careers where a history degree can open doors and potentially offer unique advantages.

Civil service

Governments are powerful; their decisions have a significant effect on almost all aspects of life within a country – and often influence other countries, too. Keeping a government’s wheels turning requires a workforce of civil servants, who are responsible for almost all aspects of running a country, from developing and maintaining infrastructure, to providing public services, to designing and implementing policies. 

This means that what a civil servant does varies widely. One reason for this is the way that governments are segmented into departments, each with its own focus and culture. For instance, you could easily spend your whole career working in the education department, developing deep knowledge of that department’s work, and have a completely different career than if you’d worked in the treasury, health department, or foreign office.

The types of jobs on offer are also very wide. As you’d expect from any large organization, civil services need all kinds of staff to function well. While the range of opportunities is extensive, many governments streamline entry through standardized pathways, such as graduate schemes. These structured programs provide accessible starting points, allowing you to get familiar with government work before narrowing your focus to a specific department or career track.

For most national government roles, an undergraduate degree is a common requirement. However, subject-specific qualifications are generally flexible, except for more specialized positions—such as those in the treasury, where expertise in mathematics or economics may be necessary. That said, a history degree can be a strong foundation for many entry-level civil service positions, as these roles tend to emphasize broad analytical and communication skills over technical specialization.

How much impact could you have?

The civil service can let you have a meaningful influence over how your government tackles important problems. It’s also a career path that’s highly accessible, whatever country you’re from, since every government needs a civil service to help it function.

However, if you’re passionate about having a large positive impact within the civil service, it’s important to think about where and how you might be able to do this. Governments are large organizations with a very broad focus, so there’s a lot of variance in how impactful these careers can be. The most promising avenues will likely depend (among other things) on how well-resourced your country’s government is, and the kind of job you’re able to get.

For instance, within high-income countries, your budgets are typically much larger, meaning you may have more leverage. However, the problems within your country (like poor health and extreme poverty) are likely to be less severe than in poorer countries. This makes it more important to pursue areas of work that might have a more global impact, rather than just domestic. This could include helping to improve resilience to pandemics, improving international aid, aiding science and innovation, as well as mitigating potential dangers from artificial intelligence. 

In lower-income countries, this dynamic reverses: there are fewer resources to spend, but there are often much more significant problems affecting people, like poverty and poor health. For instance, lower-income countries often have lax laws and enforcement around dangerous substances like alcohol, tobacco, and lead paint, each of which causes large harm. Because of this, basic regulation, taxation, and enforcement could lead to large health improvements.

As a more general rule, the most impactful roles within government will be ones that grant you more leverage, like those that influence policy design and implementation, oversee significant budgets, and make other strategic decisions. Unfortunately, in many governments, it’s hard to be too selective about the kind of work that you pursue. These are typically large bureaucracies and personal autonomy can often suffer as a result. However, with some strategy, you may be able to carve yourself a career that’s able to influence some of the world’s most important problems.

Civil service salaries

In the US, the Pew Research Center reports an average salary of $106,382 federal government workers as of 2024. Globally, public sector workers tend to have a significant wage premium over workers in the private sector, especially in low- and middle-income countries. This means civil services tend to offer relatively good salaries, though there’s lots of regional variance.

Getting started in the civil service

Here are a few practical ideas for actions you can take now to test your personal fit and upskill for civil service careers.

• Volunteer within a local government or a large NGO – Finding volunteer roles at suitable (preferably large) organizations can let you do similar work to what you might do as a civil servant. There are loads of opportunities like these available, but J-PAL’s internship list is a good place to start.
• Work out your point of entry. Getting into the civil service varies quite a lot from country to country. Often, entering the civil service as a new graduate involves a standardized process, like a graduate scheme or entrance exam. Other countries use more typical job listings and applications. Research your own country’s way of doing things and work out what you might need to do to prepare. You can also think about lateral entry, where you enter a civil service as a more senior employee, often with expertise in a specific field.

Policy research

Want to have an influence on some of the most important decisions that can be made? Careers in policy research can let you do this. Policy researchers analyze social, economic, and political issues to inform decision-making and legislation. This kind of research is often used to positively shape policies implemented by governments, as well as other powerful organizations, like multinational institutions (such as the UN or World Bank). They can also shape public discourse – by popularising certain policy ideas, policy research organisations can increase public demand for specific policies, making them more likely to be passed by legislators. 

Policy research jobs are available in think tanks, advocacy organizations, or academic institutions, producing reports, white papers, and policy proposals. There are also quite a few roles available within government agencies, meaning there is some overlap between jobs in this path and the civil service.

All policy roles require analytical and writing skills, meaning history is a strong degree subject for entering this career path. There are also a good share of jobs available to new graduates without much concrete policy experience. It’s worth noting, though, that some policy research roles require quantitative research skills, and so might not be the best fit for a history graduate without further skills development. Some more specialized policy roles will also require postgraduate qualifications in relevant subjects.

How much impact could you have?

Behind the scenes, there’s lots of work that goes into working out which policies to implement, and technical details around how exactly they need to be formulated. Because of this, policy roles can have very high leverage, having a real influence on how large amounts of resources are spent, and how important parts of public life are run.

There’s quite a lot of variance in how much good policy research can achieve. It depends on a few important things. The most important is the area of policy you work in. In short, some cause areas will let you have a much more positive impact than others.

Specifically, policy research can be highly impactful if focused on influential decision-making processes and neglected global issues. Well-researched, evidence-based policy recommendations can steer governments and large institutions’ actions in positive ways, and across high-priority cause areas like broad societal improvements, catastrophic risks, global health, artificial intelligence, and international aid.

However, much like with civil service jobs, many roles within policy research will focus on areas that aren’t particularly high priority, such as narrowly domestic problems rather than large-scale, global issues. Though positive impact can still be had, this can impose limits.

Your impact in this role will also depend on the kind of organization you work for. For instance, think tanks are often associated with political parties or specific kinds of politics. If you work for a think tank whose politics aren’t popular, you may find your efforts fail to lead to real-world influence. Similarly, if you work within a government where the incumbent legislators care very little about important cause areas, you may find it difficult to make meaningful progress on these issues.

Policy research salaries

Your pay will depend in part on what kind of organization you work for. For think tanks, Payscale reports an average salary of $67,000. Nonprofit policy research may offer lower salaries but may also be focused on more pressing issues. Government roles often provide more stability, while research in top-tier consulting firms or financial policy organizations may be more lucrative, but offer less obvious routes to impact.

Getting started in policy research

Here are a few practical ideas for actions you can take now to test your personal fit and upskill for high-impact jobs in policy research.

• Look at policy research. Pick one of the think tanks on this list (whichever seems most interesting to you) and take a look at one of their recent research publications. Are there any things you think could be improved? Any important questions they haven’t answered? Could you see yourself doing this kind of research?
• Follow a policy debate. Another idea is to follow a parliamentary committee hearing from whichever country you live in, on a policy topic that interests you. Try to follow along and evaluate participants’ arguments, thinking about what you might in response.
• Try our test task. Take a look at our test task we developed in collaboration with charity evaluator GiveWell. It involves creating either a report or a cost-effectiveness analysis of a global health intervention, and should take a few hours. Even if you’re not interested in global health, this task will give you a good sense of whether you enjoy looking analytically at potential solutions to important problems, just as you would in any form of policy research.

You can also consider pursuing an internship or fellowship related to policy research, which can be available both during or after your degree. We’ve included a few below:

Journalism

At its core, journalism is about informing the public and shaping how we understand the world. Whether through breaking news, longform investigations, or analysis and commentary, journalists play a vital role in influencing public discourse.

But while that mission is consistent, the day-to-day reality of journalism can vary a lot. Journalists work across a wide range of mediums—print, online, radio, TV, and social media—each requiring different skills and connecting with different audiences.

There’s also a lot of variation in the kind of journalism you might do. Some journalists are on the front lines of fast-moving events, publishing stories as they unfold. Others spend weeks or months digging into a single topic, uncovering important information and helping others understand it. Some spend most of their time at a desk; others travel regularly for field reporting, interviews, or press briefings.

If you’re studying journalism, you’re already taking a strong first step. Through your coursework, you can start building a portfolio—whether it’s written articles, multimedia pieces, or audio stories—that shows your ability to communicate clearly and effectively. That kind of practical experience, alongside the more theoretical understanding of journalism you’ll develop, can help you stand out as you enter the field.

History may not be the most obvious background for a journalism career, but it actually lends itself to journalistic work quite well. The main reason is that history will help you learn how to write about complex events, narratives, and ideas, untangling them and communicating them in a clear way. This is a critical skill for almost all journalism roles. 

There’s precedent to this: author Rutger Breman studied history and considered being an academic before taking up journalism. He now writes popular books and widely-read articles on some of humanity’s top challenges, such as global poverty.

The most important part of getting into journalism is being able to demonstrate your writing skills (or skills in other journalism-relevant media). If you can build a portfolio of writing to demonstrate these skills alongside your history degree, you’ll be on a good footing for journalism jobs.

How much impact could you have?

High-impact journalism has the power to drive significant positive change. By informing both the public and policymakers of important (and perhaps overlooked) issues, high-quality journalism can play an important role in positive change.

For instance, reporting by journalists like Ida B. Wells on violence against Black Americans and racial inequality in the USA in the early 20th Century was an important driver of civil rights reform. By revealing important inequities such as this, journalism can help shape public opinion on important causes and highlight injustices that may not otherwise receive attention. Journalism can also play an important role in challenging corruption, in many instances leading to positive political change.

Journalists can also provide helpful analysis of issues. This can help improve public discourse around important problems, shaping decisions made by governments and companies. For example, writers at The Economist helped shape conversations around COVID-19 through their detailed estimates of its impacts.

However, journalism isn’t inherently a positive career—there are lots of modes of journalism, and it can tackle all manner of topics, from celebrity gossip to foreign policy. The problem is that, like any industry, journalism is driven by public demand—and there’s generally less demand for the large-scale, persistent issues that affect people around the world. 

That’s why the journalism roles we’re most enthusiastic about are those that spotlight big, important problems – especially those that are neglected by mainstream coverage. This includes topics within high-priority global problems, which are often impactful to cover in part because they’re neglected.

There are promising opportunities in this space. For instance, Vox’s Future Perfect covers stories within high-priority cause areas often not covered in other outlets, like risks from AI, animal welfare, global health, and biosecurity. Other widely-read outlets like The Economist and Financial Times are highly respected and provide high-quality coverage of often-overlooked but important issues. Smaller magazines like Works in Progress, Asterisk, and Asimov Press do similar work, with a more targeted focus on big-picture questions for making the world a better place. 

So, if you’re able to get a role that allows you to cover the kinds of issues that can lead to large-scale change – or are able to do this freelance – then journalism can offer a chance of significant impact.

Journalism salaries

In the US, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports an average salary of $60,280 for news analysts, reporters, and journalists as of 2024. The top 10% of earners receive more than $160,000.

Getting started in journalism

Here are a few practical ideas for actions you can take now to test your personal fit and upskill for high-impact jobs in journalism:

• Start a blog. Keeping a blog will help you develop your writing quality, consistency, and pace. Because it’s public, you might even find helpful opportunities through your readership. Your blog doesn’t have to cover professional topics, but having a few relevant entries can strengthen your future journalism job applications.
• Write for a student publication. If you’re still a student, contributing to a student publication is an excellent way to gain journalism experience, improve writing through editing, and build editorial skills. This is a well-proven route for many journalists. You can also explore other university media clubs – like radio or video, which will help develop other important journalistic skills and provide valuable experience for your CV.
• Freelancing. A slightly deeper way to develop your journalistic skills, freelancing lets you build writing samples in areas of interest with minimal commitment or risk, as you can balance it with another job or your degree.

You can also consider pursuing an internship or fellowship in journalism, which you might be able to participate in during or after your degree. We’ve included a few below.

Other relevant careers

The careers explored above are ones that may be particularly advantageous to explore for people with a history degree or major. Here, we’ll give a few quick extra examples of careers that may also be a good fit.

History academia

Academic historians study the past, interpreting historical sources to decipher what happened and why – all the way from ancient history to the 21st century. Alongside researching and publishing, they also teach, present at conferences, and often have various administrative tasks. 

History research can be impactful, especially when it leads to insights with forward-looking implications. For instance, the historian Christopher Brown has written about the abolition of the slave trade, arguing that it was brought about by courageous individual advocates rather than inevitable societal change. These have potential implications for how we weigh the importance of advocacy efforts going forward. Understanding how past catastrophes, such as war, occurred could also help us understand how to avoid them in the future. 

However, we’re uncertain whether this research is generally as impactful as more targeted non-academic research on important problems, like policy research or prioritization research. We also suspect it may be difficult to focus on the most impactful historical topics, since there are often strong incentives and restrictions regarding the topics you’ll research and teach.

For academic positions, a PhD in history (or a closely related subject) will be required. However, academia is notoriously competitive, even once you have a PhD.

Communications

Communications professionals are responsible for conveying an organization’s work, including successes, challenges, products, services, and news. In doing so, they can be a crucial part of an organization’s outreach, reaching more people (or more relevant people) than they would otherwise. Some communications specialists also work to improve internal communications. In these ways, people working in communications can act as a multiplier on the organization’s broader impact. 

Communications careers are open in the academic background they require. What matters most is that you’re able to communicate clearly, mostly in writing, but often across other formats, too. If you’ve performed well in a history degree, it’s likely you’ll be able to demonstrate strong written communication, making this a feasible career path for history graduates. 

Career Journey – Jenna Riedi

Jenna Riedi wasn’t sure what to do with her history degree, but knew she wanted to help animals. Now a communications manager at Faunalytics, Jenna works to connect animal activists with cutting-edge research.

“If you find a position that excites you, but you look at the qualifications and think, ‘I don’t know if I’m fully qualified,’ apply anyway. Let them decide.“

Read our full interview with Jenna here!

Spreading good ideas

Careers that let you communicate good ideas at scale, such as content creation, blogging, or even becoming a public intellectual, can help to make impactful ideas more widespread.

For instance, the YouTube channel Kurzgesagt produces videos on important topics such as factory farming and catastrophic risks to a massive audience. 

A history degree or major is a strong background for these kinds of careers—it’ll give you experience in understanding and explaining complicated ideas.

However, it’s worth keeping in mind that succeeding in this path is highly unlikely. There are many people competing to have their voices heard in the public sphere, and if you’re putting yourself in the limelight, you may have to develop expertise in a field to be taken seriously.

Roles for career capital

Regardless of the exact career path you go down, often the best way to have an impactful career over the long term is to focus on building useful skills, experience, and connections – known as career capital – early on in your career. Counterintuitively, this can mean taking jobs that aren’t directly impactful, but that might put you in a better place to take highly impactful jobs later on. Here are a few guidelines for opportunities that can offer strong career capital:

• Jobs that offer strong development. Some roles will let you develop skills more quickly than others. For instance, graduate schemes are often focused on giving you professional development, and small, early-stage organizations can often offer more personal mentorship and opportunities to contribute. 
• Jobs in prestigious organizations. Roles in organizations with strong reputations for excellence will look impressive on your CV. They’ll also often give you experience in a high-performing environment, developing your general professional skills. This could include top consultancy firms, tech companies, and financial firms.
• Postgraduate education. Getting further education in your chosen field can unlock more, and sometimes better, opportunities. However, graduate degrees tend to be most useful in technical fields and academia rather than the careers we’ve highlighted for history graduates.

How does history compare to other degrees?

That being said, history degrees confer several important transferable skills that will serve you well in many careers. Though you might not have much opportunity to use your subject expertise in your career, skills in critical thinking, writing, and research are robustly valuable. History will give you a good foundation in all of these.

However, it bears noting that because there aren’t many impactful roles directly related to history (at least that we know of), history doesn’t offer many advantages over other degree subjects. There are likely to be other degree subjects that are more relevant to the career paths mentioned above. For instance, studying politics, political science, or social policy may offer a more natural route into policy research careers. 

History may also not teach you some helpful technical skills, like statistics or programming, which are important for some types of highly impactful career paths. If you want to expand your options with a history degree or major, we’d suggest finding ways to upskill in these more technical areas.

Expanding your options

It’s important to note that this is just a small selection of the careers that you’ll be in a good position to pursue with a degree in history. These are careers that we think have a potential for high positive impact and personal fulfillment, and your degree will put you in a good place to pursue these kinds of jobs.

However, don’t feel limited by these options. Careers are flexible and often take unexpected directions. Your degree will provide a great first step for the jobs discussed in this article, but your true list of options is much larger than it might seem. 
In fact, most graduates (as many as 74%) go into careers unrelated to their degree subject or major. Because of this, it’s well worth keeping an open mind and exploring other paths, too, even if they don’t immediately seem relevant to your education.

What should you do next?

Here’s a few suggestions for steps you can take next to plan your career and find great opportunities.

• Read our career advice series for a step-by-step guide on building a career that’s good for you and the world.
• Find great job opportunities on our high-impact job board and explore great internships and fellowships.
• See our career profiles for a full list of impactful careers that we’ve researched.
• Consider applying to our free 1-1 advising service, where we can give you helpful, tailored career advice.