What can you do with a humanities degree?

By Nick Clarkson, PhD · Published August 7, 2026 · Updated September 19, 2026

You have probably heard the question more than once. At a holiday dinner, at a graduation party, in your own head at 2am. “What are you going to do with that?”

The question has an answer, and the data is more promising than the reputation. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York tracks employment outcomes for recent graduates by major. In its 2024 data, some humanities fields — foreign languages (1.6%), liberal arts (3.8%), and interdisciplinary studies (3.9%) — have unemployment rates below the 4.2% overall average, and history is tied with biology at 4.3%. Computer science and computer engineering, on the other hand, have unemployment rates at 7.0% and 7.8% respectively.

Which humanities major is the most versatile?

That is not a figure of speech. When LinkedIn looked at where 2022 to 2024 graduates actually landed, English came out on top for versatility, with 69% taking jobs in fields farther afield from their major, ahead of business and marketing (64%), computer and information sciences (63%), and engineering (41%). The ranking, published by Forbes in June 2026, put the humanities and adjacent fields across the top: visual and performing arts at 68%, communication and journalism at 67%, and the social sciences at 62%, while health professions (21%), education (34%), and engineering sat at the bottom.

That finding highlights the strength of humanities degrees. A humanities degree trains the part of almost any job that involves reading a situation, weighing evidence, and explaining a decision to someone who has to act on it. That breadth is why English, arts, and communication graduates find work across communications, operations, policy, user research, product, program management, and consulting, rather than filing into a single lane.

The same breadth carries a cost, though, and it shows up in the first paycheck.

Do humanities majors earn less?

The same New York Fed data shows humanities majors clustering near the bottom of early career wages. Recent graduates in English earn a median of about $48,000, history about $47,500, and liberal arts about $45,000, against $58,000 across all majors and $75,000 to $90,000 in engineering and computer science (finance and economics sit around $70,000).

Two things are worth keeping straight about that gap. First, measured against the highest-paying fields, the early career wage gap is large. $30,000 or more a year. Measured against the typical graduate, it is smaller, closer to $10,000 to $13,000. Second, it reflects the industries humanities graduates tend to enter more than the value of the work they can do.

Why is it hard to explain a humanities degree to employers?

The pattern behind the number is that many higher-paying entry roles are open to any major and screen for the language of skills rather than the name of the degree. A posting asks for “stakeholder engagement,” “synthesis of complex sources,” or “translating technical detail for non-technical audiences.” A humanities graduate has done all three, many times, and files them under “leading seminar discussion,” “writing a research paper,” and “teaching.” It is the same skill in a different dialect, but if the recruiter can’t match the vocabulary in a quick scan, those skills don’t register.

That translation problem is solvable. Unbracket is designed to help you make that translation, making you more competitive for a high-impact role that pays well.

Why is now the time to fix it?

The timing is unusual. As AI takes over more routine technical work, employers are in need of the skills a humanities education builds. A 2026 Strada Institute survey of nearly 1,500 executives found that employers rank critical thinking and communication as the most important skills in early-career hires, above AI literacy. Daniela Amodei, president of the AI company Anthropic and an English literature major, has said she has zero regrets about that degree, and that as AI grows more capable, “the things that make us human will become much more important.”

The demand is there. The recognition is catching up. The remaining gap is vocabulary.

How do you turn a humanities degree into a job?

Start by naming your skills in the language employers use, with evidence attached to each one. Take a seminar paper, a thesis chapter, a summer job, a club you ran, write down what the work involved, then find the professional term for it. That is the work Unbracket walks you through.

If you want the longer version of why these skills matter now, read our piece on the humanities in the age of AI. If you would rather see it in action, walk through a sample profile.

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What was the moment you first felt stuck putting your education into words an employer would recognize? That is the moment this tool is built for.