What Can You Do With a Business Degree?

Becoming a manager is a tough job, with long hours and heavy responsibilities. The upside is that managerial roles are known for being higher-paid, as well as boasting many opportunities for career progression or even a career U-turn. Managers can be found across all industries and fields, and their job is to provide structure and strategy to a workplace.

Because of the responsibility of such positions, it’s unlikely you’ll find a managerial role without first gaining a further degree or a number of years of mid-level work experience. Despite this, business graduates are well-placed to become managers later on in life, and with determination and steady career progression an additional degree may not be necessary.

Another option which may appeal is the field of business consultancy. This means working as part of a team, combining your business expertise and analytical skills in order to provide advice to other companies, usually focusing on how to optimize a specific project or part of the business. Projects and clients may vary widely, ensuring plenty of fresh challenges to get to grips with. Or you may specialize in a particular type of business, combining your business knowledge with a second field of interest, such as engineering or logistics.

There’s much more to retail and sales than shelf-stacking and cold-calling, especially if you’re armed with a business degree. Opportunities within sales and retail are numerous, including shop-based and office-based roles, as well as travelling positions for which a good knowledge of global markets is a must.

For those looking to rise to the higher levels of retail and sales careers, large companies often offer the chance to undertake a graduate training program or trainee management program, in order to fast-track your position within the company. This can be highly valuable in gaining on-the-job experience, while continuing to develop your business and management skills in a commercial world.

Other common graduate careers with a business degree include roles within auditing, banking, communications, distribution, energy and utilities, hospitality and leisure, IT, insurance, journalism, law, logistics, manufacturing, media administration, production management, public relations, the public sector and defense, risk management and tax.

What can you do with a business degree without following the typical routes? Well, you can do rather a lot. Roles requiring business acumen and analytical thinking are innumerable, and your choice of which industry to head into is likely to be based on personal interests. It’s a cliché, but true – if you work for a company, product or service you truly believe in, you’re likely to be more motivated and effective in your role and progress more rapidly.

Although business studies degrees may not seem like the most creative of pathways, they can in fact lead to many roles within creative industries. Media is one such widespread industry, an umbrella term covering TV, film, online, newspaper and magazine publishing, events and more. While you’re unlikely to be directly involved in creative tasks such as writing, video editing or animation production, you’ll need a solid understanding of the media sector within which you’re working. Business careers in media include roles in sales, human resources, PR, finance and accounting, operations, marketing and branding, as well as overall management and strategic direction.

Opportunities in marketing and advertising are numerous for business graduates, particularly for those with a bit of creative flair. In these industries, business graduates can use the analysis and report-writing skills honed during their degree in order to conduct market research, develop marketing strategies, manage client relationships, liaise with copywriters, designers and printers, analyze markets and evaluate campaign results. You’re likely to be working alongside specialists such as designers, video producers and copywriters, and will need to continually broaden your own skillset to keep pace with changes in technology and market trends.

Business doesn’t have to be a dog-eat-dog world, and careers within human resources offer roles which require both business acumen and highly honed interpersonal skills. Recruitment, training and pay are all areas handled by the HR department. Great communication skills are essential, but you’ll also be expected to have a good basic understanding of business operations and management as well as detailed and up-to-date knowledge of employment laws and company regulations.