Postgraduate Employability
There are two main career routes for our postgraduates. Graduates of our PhD programme typically enter into academic positions. Graduates of our other postgraduate programmes, such as our taught MSc programmes, typically continue to study for a further higher degree, such as a PhD. We are committed to assisting our postgraduates in terms of placement, whether this is an academic position for a PhD student, or a good PhD programme for a taught MSc student. We have been very successful on both counts in recent years. Recent graduates of our MSc programme have gained places on prestigious graduate programmes at such academic institutions as Rutgers, Berkeley, Stanford and Pittsburgh. Recent graduates of our PhD programme have gained employment at top universities worldwide, such as Oxford, Geneva, UCL, Vienna and Amsterdam.
In the case of our PhD students we have made academic placement a key part of the annual PhD progress review process, so that we can ensure that by the time a PhD student has completed his/her PhD they have not only completed a first-rate doctoral thesis but also have all the other elements that prospective academic employers look for (such as a good publication record, teaching experience, an impressive list of conference talks, a polished CV and writing sample, an engaging and well-pitched job talk, and so on). We also ensure that our PhD students are externally examined by world-leaders in their research field. This focus on placement has been tremendously successful, and since 2007 (when we first began putting together a formal placement record) Edinburgh's success rate has consistently not been far from 100%.
Further Information
Testimonials from our past postgraduate students
Postgraduate Professional Development & Research Training Seminars