What's the point of a PhD in history?

A bit more from the British Academy report. This is concerned more broadly with arts, humanities and social science degrees, of course, but it may also be encouraging for all those students worried about what their history Phd might be any use for beyond the narrow confines of academia, and how they should 'sell' themselves to non-academic employers...

Benefits of an education in the arts, humanities and social sciences

The variety of subjects within the arts, humanities and social sciences means that different subjects will relate to employment in different ways. Graduates of subjects such as law, economics and business studies will often enter employment that has a clear and direct link to their subject of study. The starting salaries that these graduates can command are often high. For other subjects within the arts, humanities and social sciences, the link may be less direct and the transition from graduation to employment may be longer and more complex. But graduates with a non-occupation-specific degree are suitable for a wide variety of employment and are less pressurised to find work that exactly fits their training because they have skills that are applicable to a large number of different sectors. ...

Graduates in the arts, humanities and social sciences achieve leading roles in public life. History, for example, is the third most popular subject studied by the main board directors of the FTSE top 100 companies. Currently, seventeen of the twenty-one Cabinet Ministers hold degrees in subjects falling wholly within the arts, humanities and social sciences. Dr John Reid who has a PhD in History and is now Secretary of State for Health, formerly Northern Ireland Secretary, has been quoted as saying, when he was in Northern Ireland, that History presented a context and a perspective on one of the longest-running conflicts in European history – 'if you have some interest in the history of Ireland, it certainly helps you to appreciate why some of the present problems seem intractable to those on the outside'. ...

The UK economy is moving from one that is based in the industrial sector to one that is dominated by the service sector: in 2000, the traditional manufacturing and agricultural production occupations accounted for less than 15 per cent of all employment. Many of the most versatile people in the economy are coming from the arts, humanities and social sciences because the skills of analysis, research and presentation acquired by graduates in the arts, humanities and social sciences can be applied in a wide variety of nondiscipline-specific areas. ...

This is worth repeating, too: 'It has repeatedly been stressed that graduates have to be able to articulate their skills and aptitudes to employers. It has also been argued that academics in many subjects falling within the arts, humanities and social sciences are not always aware of the extent to which the skills that graduates gain whilst studying for their degree are valued by employers.' (Three qualities of graduates in English were appreciated by employers who took part in a recent study: 'persuasiveness, conceptual thinking and confidence'.) In other words, while you can turn to lecturers and supervisors for advice on many things, this may not be one of them. But in any case a PhD is supposed to foster independent thinking, right? Add that to versatility, skills in analysis, research and presentation, understanding of complexity and historical development (and other things I don't have time to think of because I have to go and do some work) ...