Careers and employability

A degree in Art History equips you with intellectual and practical skills applicable to many spheres of employment.

During your studies, you will develop a range of transferable skills including:

  • analysing information and visual evidence
  • presenting information in a coherent and balanced way
  • good listening and communication skills
  • time management skills
  • working independently and in as part of a team.

As a student at The University of Manchester, you will have many opportunities to develop additional skills by getting involved with a student society, sport and voluntary work.

Internships

Students visiting the exhibition 'Ali Kazim: Suspended in Time' exhibition, Ashmolean Museum, as part of the course Art and Ecologies.
Students visiting the exhibition 'Ali Kazim: Suspended in Time' exhibition, Ashmolean Museum, as part of the course Art and Ecologies.

Art History at Manchester believes in providing opportunities to gain professional and practical experience.

We have students currently on work placements at The Whitworth, the university's art gallery, and at the Castlefield Gallery which is one of Northern England’s most active and successful organisations for developing emerging contemporary artists and practice.

Each summer, our partners the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, on the Grand Canal, Venice, accept two second-year students as interns at this world-famous collection of modern art.

Our students also gain valuable work experience at Tabley House, Knutsford, a splendid Grade 1 listed Palladian mansion, containing an important collection of British art, and at the Portico Library and Gallery, a historic Manchester institution founded in 1806.

Work placements

You can apply to spend a year gaining valuable workplace experience on a work placement as part of most undergraduate courses at the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures.

My degree sparked an interest in learning, art and social history, which I have never lost. I can’t emphasise enough how important curiosity is for an art historian and a journalist.

Rebecca Atkinson / Art History and Visual Studies alumna, Online Publications Editor, Museums Association