Impactful jobs for economics degree graduates

Considering an economics 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 economics.

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 an economics degree can open doors and potentially offer unique advantages.

​Development economics

Development economics is a subfield of economics that focuses on economic conditions and the well-being of people in low and middle-income countries. Development economists work in governments, NGOs, think tanks, or academia, trying to incorporate and improve evidence-based policies and programs. 

Some responsibilities of a development economist include:

• Designing experiments (such as randomized controlled trials) to assess the efficacy of intervention programs and interventions.
• Interpreting the results of studies and producing reports and academic research papers. 
• Academic economists will likely have teaching responsibilities as well as other departmental duties.

How much impact could you have?

As a development economist, you can be fairly confident you’d be helping those living in poverty, especially if you manage to get a job within an impactful nonprofit, foundation, governmental agency, etc., or as an economist in an evidence-based policy research center (see our full development economics profile for more detail).

Development economist salary

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports an average salary of $115,440 for economists (as of 2024).The highest 10% of economists earn over $212,000.

However, these are likely higher than the earning potential of development economists, as the figures are dragged upwards by economists working in financial services, who earn more on average than in other sectors. 

Getting started in development economics

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

• Study a master’s degree in Public Policy (with a Development Economics specialization), or some other quantitative development- or economics-related specialization. Some qualitative programs, such as Development Studies, sound similar but are actually not very useful to this career path. Note: you can get into junior positions even without a master’s degree, but most more advanced positions will require it.
• Enroll in the MITx MicroMasters Program in Data, Economics, and Development Policy, especially if you can’t afford or don’t have access to a full on-campus high-quality master’s program.
• If your interest is policy, try taking any opportunity that you can, such as internships (especially in the top institutions) or small consulting contracts. Professors often get many requests for consulting and can’t support them all, and are happy to outsource the lower-priority ones to enthusiastic students who express an interest.

Monitoring and evaluation 

Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) specialists work in and with governments, NGOs, and other organizations to assess whether their social programs are functioning as intended and working for the people they’re intended to reach and, if not, what can be done to improve them. 

Some specific responsibilities include: 

• Designing and implementing data collection practices, such as developing evaluation surveys and managing field-based data collection workers.
• Developing strategies and theories of change for an organization. 
• Analyzing quantitative and qualitative data to generate actionable insights about the delivery and efficacy of a program. 

Because of the statistical methods and data analysis skills you’ll pick up in an economics degree, people with an economics degree are often sought after for M&E jobs, particularly for roles that require a more quantitative skillset.

​How much impact could you have?

If you’re able to join a high-impact organization, such as a nonprofit focused on evidence-based solutions to pressing problems or a well-respected external evaluator, a career in M&E could allow you to do a fair amount of good.

This is particularly true if you have a passion for global health and development, where most of the promising opportunities are. 

However, the impact you can have will depend in large part on the organization you’re a part of. Our full profile on M&E specialists goes into more detail.

​Monitoring and evaluation salary

Monitoring and evaluation salaries are likely to depend a lot on location. In the US, EvalCommunity reports an average salary of $73,500. Monitoring and evaluation salaries are likely to be higher for positions that require advanced degrees (such as in economics) and in respected external evaluation organizations.

Salaries are likely to be lower on average for M&E specialists who work within low- and middle-income countries, which is where many of the most impactful opportunities in global health are based.

Getting started in monitoring and evaluation

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

• Read M&E job descriptions at orgs like IDInsight and J-PAL, or specialist job boards like Evalcommunity. Could you imagine yourself performing these tasks? Is there anything you’ve done in the past that resembles these tasks, and that you’ve enjoyed or excelled in? 
• You could also consider taking an online course in M&E, like this course from Georgetown University on impact evaluation within low- and middle-income settings. For more, here’s a useful list of a range of both free and paid courses.
• Some relevant master’s programs (which we discuss a little more in the “getting into the field” section) include optional consultancy projects. If you’re in one of these programs, you may be able to volunteer your services at a relevant M&E org to fulfill the conditions of your program and test your fit for this work at the same time

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 & 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.

Economics degrees can be a great background for going into government as a civil servant. With an analytical mindset and quantitative knowledge, you’ll likely be able to fit in many areas of government. And those with more advanced economics qualifications, like a PhD, may even be able to work as an economic adviser.

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 for 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. 

Other relevant careers

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

Nonprofit entrepreneurship

Nonprofit entrepreneurship is the founding of new nonprofits with the goal of solving important problems. Some specific tasks and responsibilities include:

• Any of the activities involved in creating and running a nonprofit, including administrative tasks, hiring and onboarding employees, and directing the organization’s strategy. 
• Raising funds, primarily from foundations and individual donors. 
• Build and maintain partnerships with external bodies such as government agencies, NGOs, and funders.

An economics degree is likely a good starting point for a nonprofit founder. It’ll give you strong quantitative skills which are highly advantageous for running an organization, as well as strong reasoning skills and an ability to assess evidence to make sure your organization is really having an impact. 

If you have the potential to be a great founder, then we think starting a nonprofit can be one of the most impactful options available to you, especially if you’re focused on making evidence-based decisions in high-priority cause areas.

Some founders of effective nonprofits have been able to achieve a truly massive impact, like saving thousands of lives through deploying effective solutions to large-scale problems (read our full nonprofit entrepreneurship career profile for some inspiring examples!). 

However, this path is highly demanding to succeed in, requiring a number of particular traits, like an exceptional amount of determination and resilience. It’s also quite high-risk – many organizations don’t work out as intended, meaning you can end up having little to show for all your hard work.

Prioritization research

Prioritization researchers use tools from a range of disciplines – spanning economics, philosophy, and mathematics – to help work out what the world’s most pressing problems are, as well as the best ways of tackling them. These researchers work in nonprofits, think tanks, and sometimes government.

Some specific responsibilities and tasks of prioritization researchers include:

• Researching new problems and cause areas that could be high-impact to work on.
• Creating cost-effectiveness estimates of specific programs and interventions (for example, see GiveWell’s analysis of building footbridges in rural Africa and Latin America to increase access to healthcare and education).
• Writing public-facing or internal reports on your findings. 
• Assisting with grantmaking decisions.

Because lots of prioritization research is quantitative in nature, an economics degree can serve as a great background for these jobs, given the experience you’ll gain in statistical analysis and other quantitative skills. Indeed, many successful people in this path have an undergraduate or postgraduate degree in economics or an adjacent field. 

Roles that build 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 skills and experience, known as career capital, while you’re still early 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 professional development. 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.
• Postgraduate education. Getting further education in your chosen field can unlock more, and sometimes better, opportunities. In economics, it could help you get roles with even more capacity to make a positive impact–though it’s always worth bearing in mind if it’s worth the financial and time costs.

How does economics compare to other degrees?

An economics degree is likely one of the best degrees you can pursue if you want experience that’s relevant to a wide range of high-impact careers. Here are some of the skills you’ll get in an economics degree:

• Data analysis and statistical skills: Analyzing data and understanding statistical methods is a key part of an economics education, and is transferable to many other careers and disciplines.
• Financial literacy: You will gain a strong understanding of financial markets, institutions, and tools that play an important role in modern economies.
• Policy analysis: An economics degree can help you understand the impacts of various policy choices and the trade-offs involved in policy-making.
• Critical thinking and reasoning skills: Economics teaches you to think logically, critically, and systematically about issues.

Despite economics’ broad applicability, it’s usually also worth developing more specific cause area knowledge (like global health or economic growth) if you want to find high-impact roles in specific fields. Some of the most promising opportunities can come from having a mixture of strong general skills and field-specific knowledge. There are risks in specializing too early, but it’s worth bearing in mind what other knowledge might be useful to develop.

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 or major in economics. 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 are 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.