When you arrive in Lancaster, you might not have a plan for after you graduate, but when you're ready to take the next step, we're here to help you. Studying a language strengthens your written and oral communication competence, your organisational skills, your aptitude in analysing and synthesising information, your ability to contribute to discussions and suggest ideas, and your understanding of other countries and cultures in a global world.

We have a departmental Employability Champion who advises students on their strengths and possible future careers. Employability resources and job ads are uploaded and constantly updated on our web platform. We also have active Alumni Facebook and LinkedIn groups to stay in touch and continue to promote opportunities once you have graduated. Within the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, there are specialist career advisors and opportunities to apply for paid internships to help you gain experience and prepare for your future career.

Workplace skills

Quite apart from language- and subject related skills, a degree in languages develops rich interpersonal, intercultural, cognitive and transferable skills that can be utilised across a variety of careers. In both our work-based learning module in the second year and on the International Placement Year, you will reflect academically on key issues in relation to your placement organisation.

Careers-related events

We hold ‘Careers with Languages’ events where you can meet major employers who recruit graduates with language skills. The Department also hosts an event called ‘Languages - A Route to a World of Careers’. Recent graduate Rosie (BA Hons French and Psychology), who worked both for a translation firm in Paris and for an estate agent in Tahiti during her International Placement Year, returned to campus to talk about her current role as a Digital Graduate for BGL Group. She explained what firms are looking for in job candidates and gave valuable advice on the set of skills needed to succeed. Such events are a great opportunity to gain awareness of how to stand out from the crowd in the graduate market.

Other events focus on the demands of the current job market. These include welcoming alumni to share insights about their careers in a ‘languages and employability panel’, video interview techniques workshop, CV workshop and training in translation software.

Future careers

Our graduates find employment across a wide range of language-related and non-language related sectors, often internationally. Recent graduates from Lancaster have gone into the following categories of employment as well as further study:

• Marketing and Communications
• General Management
• Operations
• Corporate Banking
• E-learning consultancy
• Academic lecturer
• Customer Service
• Civil Service