Will psychology dominate the career industry?

The employment in all psychology fields is predicted to increase by 19% by 2024 as 54% of the UK population suffers from increased anxiety since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The number of psychology jobs is increasing every year, with many high-paying opportunities for careers that require a PhD degree in the field. It also has almost guaranteed placement after university as in 2020, the UK had 32,000 certified psychologists in employment. This may have been one of the incentives for the subject’s unchanged position among the top 5 A-level subjects, ranked by popularity – along with maths, biology, chemistry, and history.

This is what Raven Harewood, an A-level psychology student in Year 12, thinks of the increase in psychology students, ‘I think the increase is quite noticeable as all of the psychology classes are fuller than others, I think this is because this is something that interests a lot of people and it’s a new subject not available at GCSE’.

The idea of psychology is likely to evolve as it continues to impact a broad variety of fields, ranging from mental health to marriage to therapy to education. Some reasons for this is because 35% of athletes experience mental health issues, and 25% of the UK society will suffer from mental health issues due to their workplace.

Furthermore, psychology is also becoming a more diverse field, with nearly 80% of clinical psychologists in the UK being female and the number of psychology graduates of colour rising to 38% in the last decade.