Discipline Deep Dive - UK Social Sciences PGR

• Domestic audiences are slightly more likely to be interested in the Social Sciences discipline area than International audiences.

• Growth is strong across all audiences.

• Asia and Europe are the largest International audiences.

• The average prospective student is more likely to be female and seek flexible research opportunities.

• Social Work is no longer the most popular specialism, Psychology based disciplines have replaced it.

It’s thought that the study of Social Sciences first started with the ancients Greeks and their rationalist inquiries into human nature, the state and morality — so it’s nice to see that this tradition lives on, as Social Sciences is the second most popular area of research for prospective Greek students, after Science & Engineering, and their interest in has seen a healthy +4% rise in the last year.

Which begs the question, is that true for the entire international audience? And, indeed, where does that audience come from and what specialisms are they seeking?

Using our Share of Search and Pulse data, we seek to answer these questions to provide a detailed look at the state of the UK PGR Social Sciences discipline across the first half of 2024.

As of Q2 2024, Social Sciences had the second largest Share of Search in UK PGR.

In our PGT deep dive, we found that the domestic audience had a slightly larger Share of Search than the international audience. That is also true at PGR level. The Social Sciences discipline area accounts for 16% of all Domestic searches, but only around 11% of all international searches. Growth, however, is strong across both.

As we can see, interest is up +4% overall, +2% domestically and a whopping +11% internationally – and this is not simply a recent boost. Over the last two years, interest in the Social Sciences discipline area has been steadily but consistently rising from all audiences. In fact, with the exception of Computer Science, it has seen the strongest growth of any discipline area across the last 24 months.

The make-up of the international audience for Social Sciences differs notably from what we see for overall interest in UK PGR.

South Asia falls from being the largest audience with 25% of the total Share of Search across all UK PGR, to the third largest (20%) in Social Sciences. Instead, Europe (27%) and the Rest of Asia (22%) have the largest Social Sciences Shares of Search. Africa and North America are fourth and fifth respectively, though African Social Sciences audiences account for 1 percentage point (pp) less of all interest compared to all UK PGR, whereas North American audiences are the opposite (+3pp).

This is similar to what we saw at PGT level, whereby the makeup of the international audience has a higher proportion of those from Europe and North America and a lower proportion of those from Africa and South Asia.

This may be a positive if it insulates Social Science research specialisms from some of the current shifts in international PGR interest (as monitored in our monthly Pulse reports).

In our PGT deep dive, we found the Social Sciences audience to be both older and more likely to be female than the general UK PGT audience. Is this also true for PGR?

To be concise, yes. Around 60% of the Social Sciences audience are aged 35+, compared to only 47% of the audience for all UK PGR. However, it’s worth noting that the largest age bracket for Social Sciences is still 25-34 (31%).

As with PGT, this difference is exaggerated when we drill down to the domestic audience, where just under 75% of those seeking opportunities in Social Sciences are aged 35+. In fact, half of the domestic audience are aged between 35 and 54, whereas the international audience are most likely to be 25-34 (38%).

Around 65% of the Social Sciences audience are female, compared to 54% of the audience for all UK PGR.

The international audience has a more even gender split, with around 62% female, compared to the domestic audience, where we see around 72% female.

The Social Sciences audience are about 3pp more likely to seek part-time opportunities than the audience for all UK PGR. A subtle difference that is mainly driven by prospective domestic Social Sciences students, who are around 7pp more likely to seek part-time opportunities than the domestic audience for all UK PGR.

In fact, almost half (44%) of the domestic Social Sciences audience are seeking part-time study, compared to only 18% of prospective international students.

The preference for flexible study translates to delivery, too.

The entire Social Sciences audience are less likely (-11pp) to want to be based on campus, and in fact domestically only 19% of the audience prefer to study this way. That’s a huge proportion of the audience that are seeking flexibility in some form or other.

In terms of motivations, the Social Sciences audience are less likely (-8pp) to list Career progression as an influential factor in pursuing a PGR opportunity. However, they were more likely to list both Cost (+3pp) and Confidence (+2pp) as concerns.

The most popular Social Sciences subject areas at PGR level tend to come from the various psychological discipline areas and, like we saw with PGT, Clinical Psychology is the single most popular.

This is a change from Q2 2023, though, when Social Work was by far the most popular specialism in Social Sciences research areas. Now, it’s the second most popular, having seen the second largest fall in interest of any specialism (-28%) – a fall which is consistent across audiences.

Other notable specialisms that have fallen in interest compared to last year are Gender Studies (-30%) and Child Psychology (-19%). Meanwhile, interest in research centered around Organisational Psychology and Neuropsychology has seen large year-on-year growth.

Domestically, Psychology-based subjects (Clinical Psychology, Health Psychology and Neuropsychology) are very popular, whereas the most popular subject for the international audience is Social Work.

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