Careers with art history
Employability advice
Our Employability and Careers Centre is here to help you develop the skills you need for a successful
graduate career. Our friendly staff and excellent resources equip you to make
informed future career choices and succeed in entering your chosen field.
Art history is a highly transferable humanities subject and leads directly to careers in museums, galleries and other cultural institutions, as well as into teaching, journalism, publishing,
television and media work, the creative industries, arts administration and business.
Our graduates work for leading museums and galleries including Tate, MoMA, the British Museum, the National Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum,
the Royal Academy, alongside auction houses and heritage organisations such as the National Trust.
Transferable skills
We encourage you to be aware of the transferable skills you develop during your course. This will be particularly useful for writing CVs, job applications and interviews.
By engaging in a wide variety of artworks and texts, art history graduates develop the ability to look and think critically at the world, to analyse arguments and to use their imagination to
see connections between things. Our courses also teach important skills in clear oral and written communication as well as independent research.
How we help you
We assist our students with professional development and their search for employment or further study. We encourage you to speak to any member of staff about your plans for the future,
but particularly to Dr Lisa Wade, our careers link in the School, or to Lynne Jordan, our dedicated adviser
for art history in our Employability and Careers Centre. Lynne can help you make the most of all the available opportunities
for professional development during your studies, as well as assisting with finding jobs, CVs and making applications.
Gain experience during your studies
There are many opportunities to gain work experience while you study with internships and our frontrunners work placement scheme. Our students
have also benefitted from working with the Essex Collection of Art from Latin America, Art Exchange, and
Firstsite, as well as from participating in internship projects including at the Minories art
gallery and with Colchester Hospital art collection.
We also offer a variety of options for study abroad and our Languages for All programme allows you to learn a
language for free alongside your course.
Support after graduation
You can use the services of our Employability and Careers Centre for up to three years after you graduate. Our staff also regularly provide
references for our students to assist with applying for jobs and further study.