Your analytical skills are highly marketable, but further study is required for many related careers

Once lampooned as the last academic domain of the workshy and the unimaginative, geography has experienced a sharp revival of its street credentials as environmentalism has entered the mainstream. Following another unlikely boost when Prince William took it up while at university in the 1990s, courses are now often oversubscribed.

Geography comes in many forms – often including feminist, Marxist and post-structural approaches – but is most straightforwardly divided into human and physical strands. Most courses feature some combination of both, allowing students to understand how communities interact with their physical environments.

Careers are not confined to specialisms, and employers value the many portable skills gained. And as for geography students' supposed lack of imagination, Roger McGough, the well-known Liverpool poet (and geography graduate), might have something to say about that.

What skills have you gained?

You'll have developed strong analytical skills, knowing how to interpret conceptual and data-based information. In a rapidly changing world your understanding of how human environments function globally and locally is highly marketable. A knowledge of how to read future socio-economic trends and use computer modelling tools will be of interest to many employers.

To this end, your degree should have included a major piece of research, which will have allowed you to develop self-management skills, as well as important transferable attributes such as communication, presentation and team-working.

What jobs can you do?

Geography graduates are equipped to move in several career directions, often combining their knowledge of human and environmental activity to work in areas such as town planning, travel and tourism or aspects of environmental protection, says Margaret Holbrough, careers adviser with Graduate Prospects.

"Surveying, either in urban general practice or in planning/development are possibilities, as are jobs within the property industry," she says, but points out that postgraduate qualifications and/or prior experience are essential for many of these careers.

"Logistics and distribution, international aid and development would be relevant career options, as well as working within local government departments or agencies responsible for transport and tourism, housing, environmental services and recycling, sustainability, regeneration and economic development," Holbrough says.

"Jobs that utilise the analytical and research skills of human geography graduates include market research, law, finance and accounting."

Postgraduate study?

A high number of geography-related careers require further study. Within six months of graduating, 19% of 2008 geography students returned to specialise in areas such as meteorology, environmental management and oceanography. Popular careers such as urban planning, surveying and teaching require more study. Business and management courses are other options.

Data supplied by the Higher Education Careers Services Unit and Graduate Prospects