Discipline Deep Dive - UK Social Sciences PGT

• The Social Sciences discipline area has the second largest Share of Search in UK PGT.

• Their international audience has a larger proportion of students from Europe and North America than other discipline areas.

• It is an older, predominantly female audience seeking flexible delivery methods.

• Psychology specialisms dominate subject interest.

In recent years, our Share of Search data has revealed that the most popular subject areas across all UK PGT have been Psychology based. In 2021 and 2022, seven of the top ten most popular subject areas were various disciplines of Psychology. In 2023, it was eight of the top ten.

But was that still the case in Q2 2024? Has the surge in interest for Computer Science or the changing landscape for international students impacted the popularity of Social Sciences specialisms? And, more generally, where does this audience come from and what motivates them right now?

Our Share of Search and Pulse data, can explore these questions to provide a detailed look at the state of the UK PGT Social Sciences discipline as we prepare to enter Q4 2024.

Through Q2 2024, the Social Sciences discipline area had the second largest Share of Search in UK PGT. Only Science & Engineering was more popular (and that was marginal) with each boasting just under a quarter of the total searching audience.

For the domestic audience, that Share of Search was even stronger (26%), in fact it was 3% more than any other discipline area. For the international audience, it was again the second most popular discipline area, with around 23% of all searches. Yet, Despite its popularity this year, we see that interest in Social Sciences has actually fallen relative to 2023.

The total Share of Search figures are slightly down across all audiences, though it is in the domestic audience that we see the most significant fall (-6%). Comparatively, interest from the international audience has remained relatively stable (-2%).

Regionally, the largest interest comes from Asia, whose searches account for around 40% of all international interest in Social Sciences PGT specialisms. That is followed by interest from Europe and North America who account for 26% and 19% respectively.

When comparing the makeup of this international audience to that of all UK PGT, we see that the European audience account for 8 percentage points (pp) more. North American audiences also account for a larger percentage of interest in Social Sciences subjects (+5pp). Conversely, the proportion of Asian (-8pp) and African (-7pp) interest is significantly lower than we see in all UK PGT.

Diving further into these figures we find that the makeup of the Asian audience is completely different for Social Sciences. For all UK PGT, the Share of Search from South Asian countries notably eclipses that of all other Asian countries. However, in the Social Sciences discipline, Asian countries outside of South Asia account for a much larger proportion of interest – some examples being Indonesia and Hong Kong, whose Shares of Search are both around 33% higher in the Social Sciences discipline area.

Overall, like in PGR Social Sciences, prospective students from the international regions whose interest has been most heavily impacted by recent policy changes (South Asia and Africa) make up a smaller proportion (-15pp) of international interest for Social Sciences subjects compared to all UK PGT. Like we found in the Arts and Humanities PGT deep dive, this suggests that the Social Sciences discipline area has a relatively stable international audience, in the face of uncertainty elsewhere.

In general, the prospective Social Sciences audience are slightly older than the average UK PGT seeker.

The Social Sciences searching audience are 9pp more likely to be aged 35+ (and 7pp more likely to be aged 45+). In fact, not far off half of the searching Social Sciences audience are aged 35+, compared to only around a third of those searching for all UK PGT.

Interest in the Social Sciences discipline area comes primarily from female students. They make up slightly over two-thirds of the total audience: that’s around 10pp more than the gender split for all UK PGT.

Once again, this is magnified when we drilldown into the domestic audience, where we find that over three-quarters of all interest comes from prospective female students.

In general, the Social Sciences audience are much more likely to be interested in flexible learning options. They are 9pp more likely to seek blended or fully online courses and 3pp more likely to seek part-time opportunities.

This is once again driven by the domestic audience, for whom flexible delivery methods accounted for around three-quarters of all searches (blended 40% and fully online 34%). They are also slightly more likely to seek part-time opportunities (52%).

With regards to motivations, the Social Sciences audience are less likely to be driven by Career Progression (-5pp) and Earnings (-3pp) but more likely to select Subject Interest (+5pp) and Career Entry (+4pp).

Psychology based subjects easily garner the largest amount of interest in Social Sciences. Nine of the ten Social Sciences subjects with the largest Share of Search in Q2 2024 were within this field:

Clinical Psychology had the largest individual Share of Search (15.65%), followed by Counselling Psychology (11.05%) and Forensic Psychology (7.19%). Journalism (3.99%) was the only subject from outside Psychology to make the top ten.

Clinical Psychology was the most popular subject for both the domestic and the international audience, though interestingly Clinical Neuropsychology was the fastest growing subject for both audiences.

If you were wondering about the popularity of subjects across all discipline areas, in Q2 2024 Psychology based subjects accounted for seven of the top ten most popular subjects across all UK PGT. Though, it may not be too long before Artificial Intelligence replaces Clinical Psychology as the most popular subject overall.

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