So. You’re thinking of furthering your education or retraining for a new career, but you’re asking yourself… Do you actually need a degree? Like seriously, in this day and age with an oversaturated market of degree holders, isn’t hands-on workplace experience much better? Well, sometimes, sure, absolutely. In certain jobs apprenticeships or years of experience from the ground up are weighted much higher than any piece of paper from a university. But for some other jobs? That piece of paper is everything. If you don’t have it, you don’t work. So let’s take a look at just some of the careers that need a degree or similar level certification.

Law

When it comes to degrees for lawyers, there are no two ways around that. Law degrees lead to some of the highest-paying jobs and professions in the country - and have a surprisingly high correlation to a high-paying career in politics - but you can’t be a lawyer without getting a degree. This is not a job that comes from workplace experience, this is a job that comes from a hard, gruelling basis in rigorous academia, research, knowledge, and mountains of information and procedures - all of which you need to know before your first day on the job. And right now the only way to get that is through a degree. Fun fact though, this is also one of those jobs that is largely immune to automation since electronic devices aren’t permitted in court and human eyes and minds are needed at every turn. So if you’re looking for jobs that require degrees, this is probably top of the list.

Medical

Just like law, medical doctors are among the highest-paid professions in the country but require a mountain of knowledge and training to enter a low-level job. Sure, there are some parts of the medical industry that can make do with lesser qualifications - like non-emergency patient transport - but even those career paths massively benefit from formal education, and at least a few certifications are required if you want to enter the profession or move upwards to other roles.

Science

Look, not every field of science requires a degree. Some mathematicians have come out of extremely niche places completely lacking in a university degree for example, and we’ve all heard about those managers and CEOs who claim to be great scientists and inventors because of the products created by the scientists in their company. But for the most part? Yeah, a degree is necessary. Especially if you’re expecting to work in a lab under any conditions or expecting to be directly responsible for human safety inside a project… and let’s face it, unless you’re getting the job through nepotism you need a degree to get your foot in the door at all.

Teaching

If you want to teach, you need a degree. At least when it comes to primary and secondary education. Like many of these other options, there are some jobs within the industry that don’t require a full degree but do need a lesser qualification - at the bare minimum, a working with children check - but if you want a teacher’s job? A teacher’s salary? A teacher’s responsibilities and a teacher’s job security? Then you need a degree. Now, we should note that if you want to teach at the university level, you specifically do not need a degree in education, absolutely not. No, you need a degree in whatever it is you’re going to teach. No matter where you look in education, people need degrees - even your gym teacher - and if they don’t have one they’re probably not qualified to do the job. Honestly? We think every teacher - especially university professors - should have a qualification in teaching and not merely in their specialist knowledge, but if that were the case then university professors would need to be among the highest educated people in the country, measured at the highest possible standards. But when you think about it, isn’t that exactly what we want from our teachers?

At the end of the day, university degrees are more than just a piece of paper. They’re a statement of quality, commitment, and years of accumulated education and knowledge about a subject matter - and there are some jobs out there that can’t be done without that knowledge. Many of these jobs are high paying, above the average national salary, and simply can’t be accessed without the proper qualification, and hopefully, you can see now that’s all for good reason. So instead of thinking about what careers need a degree, maybe think of it like this. What degree can you get that could help you reach your dreams - whether you need it or not? What can we say? A little extra education never hurt anyone.