Options with a degree in social work
While your degree sets you up with the knowledge for a career in social work, the skills you gain are also highly relevant for a range of related social care roles
These skills, along with other factors of career choice – what you like doing (your interests), what’s important to you (your values) and your personality type – will help you make informed career decisions. Remember that your career may be based on the skills you’ve gained over the course of your degree studies.
Some of the main career options with a Social work degree are:
Jobs where your degree would be useful include:
- Adult guidance worker
- Advice worker
- Arbitrator
- Careers adviser
- Chaplain
- Community development worker
- Counsellor
- Detective
- Education consultant
- Equality, diversity and inclusion officer
- Life coach
- Mediator
- Play therapist
- Special educational needs coordinator (SENCO)
- Volunteer coordinator
- Youth worker
You can find out more about these on Prospects what can I do with an social work degree? as well as the wide variety of jobs where your skills and knowledge are applicable.
Useful resources to help with your careers research
- Prospects: Careers in Social Care
- Scottish Social Services Council: Newly Qualified Social Worker Supported Year in Scotland
- Caring Careers – has information on a career in social services including job profiles that give you first hand information on what each job entails
- Social Care Wales
- Health & Care Professions Council HCPC
The icould.com website also has a full range of careers information interviews and case studies featuring numerous different roles which you can search through and view online. Some relevant case studies can be found below:
To help you explore the wide range of career options open to you have a look at Prospects what can I do with my degree? and take the Prospects Career Planner Quiz.
Volunteering locally
If you are interested in gaining some voluntary experience locally you may find the following websites helpful
- Volunteer Scotland – search for Dundee and current vacancies come up
- Dundee Volunteer and Voluntary Action
Work experience and graduate jobs
- myjobscotland for local authority vacancies in Scotland
- Good Moves Charitable Sector Recruitment
- The Guardian Social Care and Social Work jobs
- LG Jobs is the nationwide portal for jobs within local authorities in England. Searching for “Social Work” or “Social Care” brings up full existing vacancies.
- List of local councils in Northern Ireland.
- List of Welsh local authorities.
- 4RecruitmentServices is a specialist recruitment agency for the sector, operating across the UK.
- 4socialwork – to work with the homeless in particular, head to Homeless Link and also The Big Issue (TBI) Jobs. The latter is also useful for looking for work focussing on assisting people with addictions and also working with Social Enterprises.
- Compass Jobs Fair organise events regularly in London, Birmingham and the North West of England. These take a shape similar to regular Careers Fairs with stands and exhibitors with further information and opportunities, just specifically geared towards Social Work.
- NHS – Working in social care
General job searching sites for graduates – all disciplines
The following websites may be helpful to search the wider job market, where your transferable skills can be applied.
- University of Dundee JobShop
- Prospects
- TARGETjobs
- Graduate Career Advantage Scotland – GCAS funds internships and provides careers support to bridge the gap between recent graduates and employers in Scotland.
- Milkround
- GradJobs
- Bright Green Business
Graduate Schemes
Many leading UK employers across all industries run graduate training programmes, to discover the benefits of these schemes and how you apply the links below will help: