The Guardian Postgraduate Guide for 2015 gives us a snapshot of courses available this year at UK universities, grouped into 52 subject areas. Altogether, it covers courses offered by nearly 2,000 departments.
Two key trends emerge from this year’s tables - the popularity of business courses, and the growth in the number of international students coming to the UK for postgrad study. The majority of full-time postgrad students in the UK now come from abroad.
Top subjects
Tough economic times make for hard-headed students, the Guardian Postgraduate Guide confirms.
This year’s guide draws its data from 2012-13, the most recent year for which government statistics are available. And in that year, the most popular subject among postgraduate students was business, management and marketing, both in terms of students studying it, and universities offering it.
Business, management and marketing was offered by 121 providers in our tables, with more than 70,000 students registered for taught postgraduate courses. A further 17,000 students were doing the related subjects of accounting and finance.
Education was the next most popular subject, with 97 providers for 71,000 taught postgraduate students. Many of these were taking PGCE teaching qualifications rather than full master’s degrees.
Least common courses
At the opposite end of the scale, were niche subjects are delivered by very few institutions.
Some very expensive subjects in specific professions – for example, dentistry and veterinary sciences – are delivered by only a handful of institutions.
But it is more surprising that subjects like physics and chemistry were among the least popular 10.
Part-time options
Part-time students, many of whom work and study at the same time, have different priorities from full-times.
Subjects that have a strong association with professions tend to have the highest proportions of part-time students.
Typically, these part-time students will take short postgraduate courses to maintain their “continuous professional development” or CPD.
International Students
UK universities are popular as a study destination for students in the EU and beyond, and this applies even more at postgraduate level than at undergraduate.
Almost 140,000 students who were domiciled outside the UK were studying postgraduate courses at UK universities in 2012-13 – more than a third of all postgraduate students.
Their patterns of study are very different from home students.While UK postgrad students are typically studying part-time while working (only 33% are taking fulltime courses), those from outside the UK have travelled far from home to take a full-time course – 85% do so. Many have no choice – visa restrictions impede part-time study for non EU students.
This imbalance means that the majority of full-time postgraduate students in 2012-13 were from outside the UK.
Among full-time non-UK students, the most popular subject is far and away business, management and marketing. Almost a quarter of all full-time non-UK postgraduates are taking the subject.
It is also the subject with the third-highest representation of non-UK students – 87% of full-time postgraduates taking the subject are not domiciled in the UK.
Accounting and finance also attracts a large international student base – 91% of full-time postgraduates taking the subject are not UK-domiciled.
Compared with home students, there is a far greater attraction to technical subjects, and those relating to business and finance. But these are not the only subject areas that are attracting large numbers of international students.
This year, the Guardian Postgraduate Guide comprises 52 different subjects, delivered by a total of 1940 departments at UK universities and publicly-funded higher education institutions. Some are privately funded institutions, but most providers of this type do not make returns to Hesa and so are not represented.
