Religious Studies and careers guidance
31 January 2025
Richard Barrow, Religious Studies Subject Advisor
Whether it’s for GCSE, A Level or degree, the concerns around where Religious Studies leads are frequently raised by students and parents – and even unhelpfully sometimes by teachers of other subjects! I remember discussions at parents’ evenings where parents acknowledged that their child really enjoyed the subject, but worried that studying it a higher level would affect their career prospects.
In this blog I will explain why Religious Studies has very powerful responses to these concerns, and discuss resources which illustrate possible RS career pathways.
Why we’re here – the context
Anyone in education must face head-on questions of instrumental value: what is this subject or course good for. This is the lens through which people – students, parents and teachers themselves – increasingly see education.
Concerns about employability are nothing new. However, they have been considerably heightened by the greater proportion of young people going to university (having a degree is less of a differentiating factor now), the introduction of tuition fees and a more general understanding of the education sector as involving competition, including between subjects. Humanities subjects broadly have also been affected by a greater focus on STEM. These concerns have been formalised by more explicit guidance from inspection frameworks focusing on employability.
The particular difficulty for a subject like Religious Studies is its apparent abstract nature and alleged detachment from the practical. There is also a tendency amongst potential students to conflate the subject matter of a course with the work that the person who has studied it will then be able to go on and do. In some ways this is a variation of The Doctrine of Signatures, a medieval theory of medicine which posited that plants which resemble body parts can be used to cure those body parts. If you study God-stuff, all that you can do employment-wise is God-stuff. And what if you don’t want to be an RS teacher?
Pushing back – the advantages of being an RS teacher
The first response of course is to extol the many benefits of being an RS/RE teacher. The very thing that concerns many within the RS community – the shortage of RS specialists in secondary schools – also represents an opportunity for the aspiring RS teacher. Secondary RS teaching has much to commend it as a career: the possibility of employment in all parts of the country, very good prospects of progression and the day-to-day experience of grappling with important and interesting questions.
As DfE’s Become a religious education teacher guide notes:
As a religious education (RE) teacher, you have a unique opportunity to guide pupils through the diverse range of beliefs and practices across the world. You’ll challenge them to consider other perspectives and reflect on their own values.
Existing paradigms for linking Religious Studies and careers
For those students still unconvinced by RS teaching, there are two existing RS careers paradigms which, though well-intentioned, I always found counter-productive. The first is to have posters of celebrities with some sort of annotation along the lines of ‘These famous and successful people studied RS/RE/Theology/Philosophy’. Unfortunately, the unhelpful subtext is ‘See! You can study RS and still make a success of your life!’ It also doesn’t make clear what it is about studying the subject that they are drawing on now.
The second approach is to focus very much on the subject matter and derive, Doctrine of Signatures-esque, careers that resemble them. Typically, these will be RE teacher, priest, funeral director and so on. There is nothing wrong with these of course – they are fine careers. It does nothing to challenge the unhelpful myths that they are all you can do though.
Some better paradigms (and resources)
One effective alternative approach to RS and careers that looks at specific job roles (but which avoids the usual cliches) is demonstrated in the excellent work done by Theology and Religious Studies UK (TRS-UK) which represents, supports, and promotes teaching and research in the subject in higher education throughout the UK. Their videos showcase individual graduates in careers that go beyond the stereotypes, but where the relevance of the skills and content of the courses can be linked to their roles.
Similarly, the Careers and Enterprise Company have produced a guide Where can studying Religious Studies take you? which discusses career pathways that link to Religious Studies, using case studies. It also identifies essential skills used by Religious Studies.
This ties in with another aspect of careers advice that is often missed. While of course some career pathways require very specific course choices – medicine being the most obvious example – most do not. Partly this is a point about transferable skills, and RS is very well-placed here. As a subject it teaches students to spot bad arguments, to construct effective arguments of their own and to be able to engage in reasoned debate. These skills are highlighted in our promotional materials for our GCSE Religious Studies and A Level Religious Studies.
The applicability of Religious Studies
However, this focus on transferable skills is not to imply that the subject content of RS is irrelevant. Rather, the combination of knowledge and skills can be made relevant in all kinds of ways and applications.
One topic area that really illustrates this is ethics, which forms a significant proportion of both the GCSE and A Level for OCR Religious Studies (and which gives the lie to the claim that Religious Studies is dusty and pointlessly abstract).
I spoke with Simon Kirchin, Professor of Applied Ethics and Director of IDEA (Inter-Disciplinary Ethics Applied Centre) at the University of Leeds. He said:
Applied (or practical) ethics is really good for developing ways of thinking that employers and universities like. One can take a real-world problem – animal ethics, war, the environment – and think about tricky questions (e.g. ‘If you are a vegetarian, why aren't you a vegan?’, ‘What ethical duties do businesses have to wider society?’) – and think about what the question is really asking, list some answers with pros and cons, and – crucially – go between abstract reasoning and real-world points, before you come up with a reasoned answer with justifications.
Simon also pointed to the sorts of skills developed as part of this process:
You also have to be able to explain yourself succinctly, clearly and engagingly with evidence. That is the sort of thing people have to do all the time in many varied careers – teaching, journalism, the law, civil service and policy areas, and all sorts of businesses.
There are also career routes to directly apply these skills and knowledge:
In the last few years more jobs and roles have been created for ethicists in the medical and legal sectors.
Religious Studies: good for students and for their careers
The humanities in general have been under-valued in terms of their benefit to young people’s future careers, as this University of Oxford research shows. Equally though NATRE have shown that Religious Studies is a good preparation for a range of degrees, including the sciences. What RS specifically does so well is to help prepare students to navigate a world that is increasingly inter-connected and diverse. The value of this from a business point of view is articulated by Lord Karan Bilimoria, former President of the CBI (Confederation of British Industry), in the REady for Work campaign.
What both the Oxford research and the REady for Work campaign also show is that RS benefits young people themselves (and the wider world), as well as their careers. As the Theos (a Christian think tank) report Why RE matters notes:
Securing consistent and high-quality RE for the next generation will bear fruit not only in the formation of individuals and communities, but in the building of a more humane, compassionate, and understanding society.
This is self-evidently important in itself, but it’s also crucial for how schools and colleges are judged. Part of the education inspection framework looks at how centres impact on the personal development of learners:
Inspectors will make a judgement on the personal development of learners by evaluating the extent to which:
- the provider prepares learners for life in modern Britain by: equipping them to be responsible, respectful, active citizens who contribute positively to society; developing their understanding of fundamental British values; developing their understanding and appreciation of diversity; celebrating what we have in common and promoting respect for the different protected characteristics as defined in law.
As a subject community, we can and should be much more bullish about the way in which Religious Studies does all of this (and more), and prepares young people for future success.
Stay connected
Share your thoughts in the comments below. If you have any questions, you can email us at religiousstudies@ocr.org.uk, call us on 01223 553998 or message us on X (formerly Twitter) @OCR_RS. You can also sign up to subject updates and receive email information about resources and support.
If you are considering teaching any of our qualifications, use our online form to let us know, so that we can help you with more information.
About the author
Richard studied philosophy and has a BA, MA and M.Phil from the University of East Anglia. Before joining OCR, he taught religious studies and philosophy for nearly 20 years at sixth form and university level, and has particular research interests in Learning Theory, Retrieval Practice and Flipped Learning. In his free time he enjoys weightlifting, rugby, gardening, nature/conservation and military history and also spends a lot of time looking after his children’s pets.
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