10 Lowest-Return Degrees
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Not all university degrees are created equal. While some subjects consistently lead to high salaries, excellent career prospects, and strong job security, others leave graduates struggling to earn enough to justify the cost of their education. Research into graduate lifetime earnings shows that your choice of degree can be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds over the course of your career. In fact, choosing the right subject may be even more important than choosing the right university.
The following ten subjects are identified by Institute for Fiscal Studies as delivering the weakest, and in many cases negative, individual financial returns. Graduates from these courses frequently end up financially worse off than peers with the same A-level results who went directly into the workforce after school. Nevertheless, this does not mean these subjects have no value. It means that if financial return is a significant factor in your decision, which it should be, given the cost of a UK degree, these fields require particularly careful consideration of institution quality, career planning, and likely postgraduate requirements.
| Rank | Degree | Why it Delivers Lower Financial Returns |
|---|---|---|
| #1 | Creative Arts | Encompasses Design, Fashion, and Media Arts. While creatively fulfilling, the sector is characterised by freelance and portfolio-based work, with highly variable and often suppressed earnings. |
| #2 | Performing Arts | Includes Music, Drama, and Dance. The IFS identifies this as the subject group with the lowest average financial return across the entire dataset, candidly reflecting the economics of the industry. |
| #3 | Philosophy | Often grouped with Theology. Valued for developing critical thinking, but lacking a direct vocational pathway, making graduate earnings highly dependent on later career choices and postgraduate study. |
| #4 | Agriculture | Includes Forestry and Food Science. Despite the strategic importance of food security, graduate salaries remain structurally low relative to the duration and cost of study. |
| #5 | English | Covers Creative Writing and Literature. A respected humanities subject with broad transferable skills, but median graduate earnings consistently fall below the national average for degree holders. |
| #6 | Communications | Includes Media Studies and Journalism. The structural decline of traditional media and the fragmentation of publishing have significantly compressed graduate earnings across the sector. |
| #7 | Sports Science | Includes Leisure Studies. Entry-level roles in coaching, fitness, and sports administration typically offer modest financial rewards, while competition for senior positions is intense. |
| #8 | Fine Art | Portfolio careers, gallery work, and studio practice rarely provide consistent income comparable to other disciplines. Many Fine Art graduates supplement their earnings through unrelated employment. |
| #9 | Languages | Covers Linguistics and Modern Foreign Languages. While language skills are valuable, the degree itself, without a vocational specialism, correlates with below-average financial returns in IFS data. |
| #10 | History | Includes broader Humanities. History graduates develop excellent research and writing skills but enter a broad labour market without a specific vocational advantage, contributing to lower median earnings. |
This is not an argument against university. It is an argument for going in with your eyes open. The IFS data is clear: subject choice is one of the two most important variables determining graduate outcomes. Check out 10 Highest-Return Degrees before you make your decision.
