Sociology Careers in High Demand
In 2011, Career Cast ranked the job of sociologist 11th amongst all professions in the USA, based on Department of Labour measures of work environment, stress and hiring outlook. In 2013, The Wall Street Journal announced that sociology was in 19th place in its list of best jobs. They drew on data by the USA Bureau of Labour focusing on five measures: “physical demands, work environment, income, stress, and hiring outlook.”
Sociology skills remain in high demand in government, the not-for-profit sector and in the corporate world.
Applied sociology skills in demand
In 2014, The Washington Post argued that employers are seeking social science skills as well as technological knowledge. Employers want to see strategic leadership alongside cultural, social and emotional intelligence. These are skills provided by a sociology degree.
“Leadership today requires addressing the challenges of an increasingly complex and interconnected world, whether the challenges are in business, health, education, technology, law, social justice, environmental protection or dozens of other fields… One of the lesser-known stories in higher education is the extent to which the humanities and social sciences are evolving and innovating to meet this objective. Time-worn distinctions between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ disciplines are blurring as faculty develop new ways of integrating technology into research, pull multiple disciplines together to solve problems, and apply the knowledge created to challenges in the broader world.”
Highly employable
A survey from the UK finds that 84% of social science graduates were employed three years after graduating, compared with 79% of graduates from arts and humanities and 78% of science graduates. While science majors are more likely to be pursuing a postgraduate education degree, social science graduates are more likely to be employed as managers or professionals.
Professor James Wilsdon, who chairs the Campaign for Social Science, says:
“It’s time to banish any lingering myths about the value of a social science degree. Our report shows that employers in the public and private sectors are queuing up to hire social science graduates.”
Header image credit: Photo by cohoo 郑凯夫 via Flickr.
Bottom image: original photo: shadowgirl08 via Flickr.
Sociology at Work 
I am compelled to note an error in your description of clinical sociology. Your web site page states the following: “Clinical sociologists work in hospitals and they deliver community services, often carrying out social work.” This is inaccurate in that a sociologist is not a social worker, as is that a social worker is not a sociologist. These are separate disciplines/professions. I possess a B.S. degree in sociology, but I do not identify myself as a sociologist (I do not meet the qualifications of a higher degree). Unless a sociologist also has earned at least a MSW degree, then he/she is not a social worker or practicing “social work.” This comment may seem thin-skinned to some. However, I remember one of my sociology professors who was verbally assaulted by someone because he was asked what he did for a living and replied: “I am a sociologist.” The questioner mistakenly interpreted this as a “socialist” (equated as a “communist” since this was 1971 in Southwest Virginia).
Words make a difference!
Larry W. Whorley, DSW, LCSW
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Sujay Rao Mandavilli was born in India on the 18th of November, 1969, and is the son of an IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) Professor. He is the great great grand son of Hindu philosopher and reformer late Diwan Bahadur J. Venkatanarayana Naidu. (Refer Wikipedia) Sujay has been fascinated with science from an early age and built his first telescope at the age of eleven. He has been interested in the Aryan problem since the 1990’s. He is committed to the healthy growth of science in India and elsewhere. He has worked in different technology firms for twenty years including as a Senior Consultant for IBM for Six years and has executed assignments for different clients across the world in the field of Governance, Risk, Compliance, Process Improvement and Information Security, and in this connection, has travelled to or worked in fourteen different countries.
At age 48, he quit the technology sector completely to focus on fighting dogmas, religious fascism, obscurantism and ideological constructs of all kinds and bring about a scientific and an intellectual awakening in developing counties like India using his own unique methods and approaches, with the hope that this will be a role model for other developing countries as well. He is interested in the ‘Globalization of Science’ i.e. how intellectual multi-polarity can be beneficial to science itself. He is also interested in the ‘Sociology of Science’ i.e. how a proper teaching of science can lead to Social and Intellectual revolutions in regions where such revolutions are long overdue and greatly increase scientific output. He strongly believes that Scientific and Intellectual revolutions are long overdue in developing countries several decades after the end of colonialism and is trying to lay the foundations for such revolutions in his own unique way.
He is the Founder-Director of the Institute for the Study of the Globalisation of Science (Registered as the Globalisation of Science Trust) which is has already started empanelling a group of researchers and scientists to plan its next course of action.
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