What Can You Do With a History Degree? Careers, Jobs & Salary in 2027

What can you do with a history degree? careers, jobs & salary in 2027—from teaching and research to government, law, business, and other paths—along with typical job roles, earning potential, and the skills employers look for. The assumption that history graduates have only two options, teaching or becoming a historian, does not reflect the range of careers pursued by people with history degrees. History graduates work in education, law, management, government, business, museums, libraries, communications, research, nonprofits, and other fields.

The key is to understand what a history degree actually provides. History does not prepare students for a single career path. Instead, it builds a versatile skill set—research, writing, evaluating evidence, critical thinking, and clear communication—that transfers across many professional environments. Current U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data illustrate this breadth. In 2023, approximately 1.29 million workers with a history degree were employed in the United States.

18% of graduates went into management positions, which is equal to the 18% who went into teaching and library careers. Legal careers employed 10%, while business and financial operations also took 10%. Sales and related occupations accounted for another 7%. The remaining 37% worked across other occupational groups. So, what can you do with a history degree in 2027? The answer depends on your interests, skills, experience, location, and in some professions the additional education or professional credentials you pursue.

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Is a History Career Worth It in 2027?

The honest answer to what can you do with a history degree is more expansive than most students expect and more specific than most history program websites suggest. The traditional historian occupation is relatively small. There were about 3,400 historians working in the US in 2026. Those numbers tell part of the story. The fuller picture includes the adjacent careers that history training consistently prepares people for: education, museums, consulting, public policy, professional writing, legal support, marketing, records management, and data-focused roles where research and analytical skills travel well across industries.

Pairing historical knowledge with job ready competencies is what makes the degree genuinely valuable. Research design, professional writing, digital archiving, GIS, data analysis, public communication, and policy research are all transferable capabilities that employers in multiple sectors recognize and hire for.

Three things worth knowing before you go further:

• Government agencies employ a large share of historians—about 24% work in federal positions. At addition to working for the government, historians can find employment at educational institutions, museums, archives, nonprofit organizations, and private businesses.
• Historians can earn up to $74,050 annually, with compensation varying by sector, location, education, specialization, and years of experience
• A career in history means examining evidence, safeguarding records and artifacts, and helping people make sense of the forces that shaped today—work that offers both meaningful civic and cultural impact and valuable professional qualifications.

Why Choose a Career Connected to History?

In order to work with facts, analyze human experience, and explain how civilizations, organizations, conflicts, cultures, and ideas develop throughout time, people pursue careers in history. Depending on how you develop your skills, the field can lead to scholarly, educational, public facing, administrative, technical, or consulting work a range that answers the question of what can you do with a history degree more comprehensively than any one job path would imply.

• Preserving stories that might otherwise disappear: Researchers use a variety of data, including written records, oral histories, tangible objects, pictures, maps, and documents kept by organizations, to unearth neglected perspectives and determine whether a historical narrative has been oversimplified. That work matters across museums, archives, classrooms, documentary production, community history projects, and policy research—environments where the recovery of accurate historical record has direct consequences for how decisions get made today.
• Building a broad analytical range: Studying history requires engaging seriously with political systems, cultures, economies, belief systems, social movements, geographic regions, and multiple time periods simultaneously. Digital access has expanded the volume of available material considerably, but professionals still need strong judgment to assess reliability, establish context, and determine what evidence actually signifies skills that transfer across industries far more readily than most students realize while they are still enrolled.
• Learning to identify patterns without treating history as prediction: Historical records document how people responded to war, migration, public health emergencies, economic disruption, political change, and social conflict. Historians are also actively documenting recent global events so future researchers can evaluate today’s decisions using stronger, more complete evidence. History professionals develop a rare analytical outlook because their work looks both backward and forward: they interpret the past while using that understanding to inform what comes next.
• Engaging with ethical and civic questions that matter: Debates about justice, citizenship, rights, inequality, migration, labor, identity, conflict, and cultural memory all depend on historical interpretation. History professionals can help schools, agencies, cultural institutions, and communities engage those issues with greater accuracy, nuance, and depth than most other specialists bring to the same conversations.

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What Skills Do History Professionals Actually Need?

• Data collection and interpretation: History careers increasingly require digital skills, with professionals working across databases, online collections, spreadsheets, metadata systems, mapping software, transcription tools, and methods for analyzing qualitative and quantitative data. Graduates who arrive comfortable with these tools alongside traditional archival research move faster and contribute more immediately in most professional environments.
• Language skills: Learning to read a language in its original form gives you direct access to source material that a translation can only approximate.
• Clear professional writing: Historians write for many audiences and formats, including research reports, exhibit labels, grant proposals, articles, books, lesson materials, documentary scripts, and public-facing narratives. Learning to write research proposals also strengthens graduate-program applications and funding requests—practical skills that become increasingly valuable over the course of a career.
• Records and administrative competence: Early career history roles frequently include cataloging, filing, scheduling, correspondence management, database updates, document management, and collection tracking. Building competency in these areas early creates a foundation for more specialized and senior responsibilities as experience develops.
• Advanced reading and interpretation: Careful, prolonged interaction with complex texts, court records, official papers, maps, photographs, private correspondence, oral histories, and narratives that directly contradict one another is frequently necessary for history study. One of the discipline’s most useful transferable skills is learning to weigh competing sources against each other and reach sound conclusions even when the evidence is incomplete.
• Public communication and collaboration: They make history more accessible by gathering firsthand accounts through interviews, teaching students and the public about the past, leading museum tours, and collaborating with archivists and curators. The ability to make difficult historical material accessible without distorting it is a skill that educational institutions, cultural organizations, and policy bodies consistently value and struggle to find.

What Jobs Can You Get With an Associate Degree in History?

An associate degree in history is a practical starting point, not a ceiling. Understanding what can you do with a history degree at this level means recognizing it as a lower-cost entry point, a transfer pathway, or a foundation for support roles while you build the research and communication skills that more advanced positions require.

• Library Technicians ($39,970): Library technicians organize materials, process circulation, maintain records, update databases, and assist patrons with information requests. The role builds familiarity with information systems and archival organization that translates directly into more specialized history careers later.
• Tour and Travel Guides ($36,660): By drawing on local context, narrative, visitor service, and speaking skills, it gives newcomers practical experience in making historical material accessible to everyday audiences—an ability valued across museums, education, and public history.
• Legal Secretaries ($54,140): Legal secretaries assist with legal research, scheduling management, file organization, and document preparation. Graduates in history have a real-world opportunity to put their organizing and document-analysis skills to use in a legal situation. From reviewing documents to assembling trustworthy material, a large portion of the research is similar to archival or investigative work.

What Jobs Can You Get With a Bachelor’s Degree in History?

A bachelor’s degree in history is genuinely versatile, but it works best when students treat it as a platform rather than a single credential. Answering what can you do with a history degree at the bachelor’s level means pairing the major with internships, a developing portfolio, and electives in education, communications, public administration, political science, museum studies, data analysis, or digital media.

• Museum Technicians and Conservators ($47,460): These specialists protect, document, restore, store, and display cultural collections. Hands-on experience with collections and archival systems during undergraduate study significantly strengthens candidates entering this field.
• Museum Curators ($61,770): Curators plan exhibitions, authenticate and interpret collections, oversee acquisitions and loans, manage digitization projects, and communicate historical meaning to the public. The position requires both subject-matter understanding and the capacity for clear explanation, both of which are directly developed by a history degree.
• History High School Teachers ($64,580): Teachers design lessons, follow curriculum standards, lead classroom discussions, assess student work, and help students understand how to evaluate historical evidence and interpretation critically. Teaching licensure requirements vary by state, so verifying the specific pathway for your target location before graduation is essential.

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Career Paths for Graduates With a Master’s Degree in History

A master’s degree in history opens more specialized roles, particularly when the program includes archives, public history, digital humanities, museum practice, research methods, or a thesis component. For working professionals, it can also facilitate a move from general administrative or education roles into research, consulting, or cultural institutions.

• Archeologists ($64,910): Archeologists study artifacts, remains, sites, landscapes, and material evidence to interpret past human societies. Field experience alongside graduate study is typically expected by employers and graduate programs in this specialization.
• Writers and Authors ($72,270): History graduates produce biographies, textbooks, historical fiction, documentary scripts, museum content, long form journalism, and research-based digital media. A master’s-level grounding in historical methodology gives published work a depth and credibility that undergraduate training alone rarely provides.
• Historic Consultants ($84,742): Consultants support agencies, filmmakers, attorneys, families, cultural groups, and organizations with historical research, genealogy, preservation issues, and background investigations. With such a broad pool of potential clients, graduate-trained history professionals have a particularly accessible entry point into entrepreneurship.

Career Paths Available to Holders of a Doctorate in History

Where Can a History PhD Take You?

A doctorate in history is the right investment for professionals who want to conduct original research, teach at the college level, lead academic or cultural programs, or build deep expertise in a specialized field. What career paths are open to someone with a doctorate in history? It carries significant potential, but students should weigh the time commitment, funding package, opportunity cost, and the realities of the competitive academic labor market before committing to this path.

• Education Administrators ($103,960): Education administrators oversee the day-to-day running of academic departments—coordinating programs and institutional projects while supporting the needs of both students and faculty. Senior administrative roles typically call for the research leadership and program-development experience that doctoral training in history builds.
• History Postsecondary Educators ($81,500): College and university history instructors teach courses, mentor students, publish scholarship, and participate in institutional service. Publishing a strong research record alongside teaching experience significantly improves competitiveness in an academic job market that remains selective.
• Political Scientists ($139,380): Political scientists study political institutions, laws, systems, theories, and policies. Historical training strengthens their understanding of causation, long-term institutional change, and the contextual factors that shape political outcomes, making doctoral history graduates genuinely competitive candidates for research positions in this field.

How Can You Gain Experience Before Applying for History Jobs?

• Turn coursework into portfolio material: Choose coursework that shows you can develop a research question, engage with primary sources, and deliver clear, well-edited writing.
• Look for applied experience early: Pursue internships, paid student positions, volunteer projects, study abroad experiences, and local history work through libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, government offices, and cultural nonprofits. Early applied experience compounds; each opportunity tends to open the next one.
• Take part in professional development events: Attend industry conferences, webinars, seminars, and practical workshops to learn about current approaches to preservation, archival work, public history, teaching, research, and digital humanities.
• Build relationships deliberately: Professors, curators, archivists, librarians, teachers, alumni, and supervisors can identify job leads, graduate programs, funding sources, and mentorship opportunities that are rarely advertised publicly. By the time openings arise, the relationships you build during your studies can matter as much as—and sometimes more than—the qualification on your résumé.

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How Are Digital Tools Changing History Careers?

The discovery, preservation, analysis, teaching, and sharing of historical evidence have all been profoundly altered by technology. Digital fluency is now a competitive advantage across archives, museums, public history, education, publishing, and research not a specialist skill reserved for technology-focused roles.

Digital Archiving and Preservation

• Why it matters: Digitization protects fragile photographs, documents, maps, recordings, and artifacts while making collections easier to search, organize, and share across institutions and geographies.
• Tools commonly used: DSpace and Omeka support digital collections, metadata management, online exhibits, and long-term access to historical materials.

Data Analysis and Visualization

• Why it matters: Digital analysis reveals patterns in migration records, land documents, demographic data, election results, trade routes, and correspondence networks that are extremely difficult to interpret through manual review alone.
• Tools commonly used: Tools such as Tableau, Gephi, and ArcGIS can turn historical material into charts, network diagrams, maps, and interactive public-history projects, helping people without specialist training explore and understand the past.

Digital Publishing and Content Creation

• Why it matters: Online platforms allow historians to reach audiences through essays, podcasts, videos, teaching materials, digital exhibits, and multimedia interpretation that sit entirely outside traditional academic publishing channels.
• Tools commonly used: WordPress, Medium, and podcasting platforms help professionals present historical interpretation in formats that general audiences actually engage with.

Virtual Reality and 3D Modeling

• Why it matters: Immersive tools reconstruct buildings, artifacts, landscapes, and learning environments for museums, classrooms, preservation projects, and public engagement initiatives that static displays cannot achieve.
• Tools commonly used: Unity and SketchUp support 3D model development and virtual reconstructions that are increasingly expected in museum design and heritage interpretation contexts.

How Can You Pay for a History Education?

Understanding what can you do with a history degree matters far less if you cannot afford to finish one. Tuition is only one part of what a program will actually cost. Before you commit, look at the total price of attendance—including textbooks, software or equipment, commuting, housing, required travel, fieldwork expenses, and any income you may lose while studying. These costs can differ widely depending on the school, whether you study online or on campus, your residency status, and how long the program takes.

Scholarships and Fellowships

Many universities, colleges, history departments, professional associations, and cultural organizations provide awards that consider a student’s financial circumstances, academic record, research interests, and intended career path. Graduate students should also ask directly about assistantships, tuition waivers, stipends, and research travel support funding that is frequently available but rarely advertised prominently. The first step in obtaining the support that many students fail to seek is to ask the question.

Research and Project Grants

Students completing theses, dissertations, archival research, preservation projects, or public history work may qualify for dedicated grants. Potential sources include universities, private foundations, humanities councils, historical societies, cultural institutions, and organizations connected to your specific research topic. That way, you can shape the work around funding that’s actually available instead of designing a project first and then struggling to find money to support it.

Work-Study, Internships, and Paid Experience

A work-study provide you with real-world experience that shows prospective employers how valuable a history degree is. Museums, libraries, archives, historical societies, nonprofits, and public agencies often hire students for paid positions or offer roles that count toward academic credit, giving you practical exposure to history-related work. Before accepting any position, confirm that it includes genuine supervision, substantive responsibilities, and work you can discuss credibly in a portfolio or interview not just administrative support dressed up as professional experience.

Loans and Federal Aid

Federal student aid can help cover education expenses, but borrowing requires honest comparison against realistic career outcomes in your intended field. Complete the FAFSA if you plan to use federal grants, loans, or work-study funding, and review repayment expectations carefully before accepting debt. History graduates pursue careers across many industries, and the pay at the entry level can differ dramatically from one role to the next.

Online Programs and Cost Control

Online study may reduce relocation and commuting costs, but it is not automatically the cheaper option. Tuition per credit alone doesn’t show the full cost. Compare net price, fees, transfer-credit acceptance, time to completion, and student support.

Employer Tuition Support

Already working in education, government, nonprofits, libraries, archives, media, or cultural organizations? Ask whether your employer offers tuition reimbursement or professional development funding before you pay out of pocket. Before you commit to a program, ask your employer to spell out who qualifies, whether reimbursement depends on your grades, how much funding is available each year, and what happens if you leave the company shortly after earning your degree. These conditions differ widely from one employer to another, so it’s far easier to confirm them upfront than to discover them later.

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What Trends Are Shaping the Future of History Careers?

History is no longer confined to the narrow academic track many people imagine. As the profession shifts, students who understand where those changes are leading can pursue roles that earlier history graduates simply did not have. Figuring out what you can do with a history degree in 2026 and beyond starts with recognizing the forces changing the field—and then building the skills and experience to meet them.

• Digital history is expanding the methodological toolkit: Digital tools such as GIS, searchable databases, digitized archives, computational text analysis, and AI-assisted transcription are helping historians handle large collections of evidence and disseminate their research in ways that are accessible to larger audiences. Graduates who combine historical training with digital skills are entering a job market that genuinely values that combination across museums, archives, government agencies, and research institutions.
• Public history remains central to how communities understand themselves: Museums, cultural institutions, community organizations, and local governments need professionals who can translate historical evidence into experiences and narratives that are understandable and relevant to non-specialist audiences. Demand for this work is not shrinking it is evolving alongside changing public expectations about whose stories get told and how.
• Diversity and inclusion are actively reshaping research priorities: Across industries, organizations are placing greater emphasis on documenting the experiences of communities that history has often left out. By bringing more perspectives into the record, they can address gaps in historical knowledge and develop a fuller understanding of the past. Historians trained to work with diverse sources and perspectives are positioned well for this moment and for the grant funding and institutional support that follows it.
• Environmental and climate history are gaining serious institutional attention: Scholars and organizations are studying how past societies interacted with ecosystems, natural resources, and environmental crises with increasing urgency. History graduates today can take their understanding of the past into environmental policy and sustainability, using historical perspectives to help address environmental problems that affect the world now.
• Global heritage work creates genuine cross-cultural opportunity: Today, initiatives focused on heritage protection, education, and cultural policy increasingly depend on collaboration that crosses national borders—frequently coordinated through UNESCO’s heritage work and similar multilateral efforts. Historians with language skills, cross-cultural experience, and familiarity with international policy frameworks are particularly well positioned for this growing area of professional practice.

Professionals considering advanced study should evaluate programs not just by prestige or cost but by whether the curriculum builds skills in digital tools, public history, global history, or another specialization that connects directly to where career opportunities are expanding. A one-year master’s program with the right focus can accelerate a career transition more effectively than a longer program built around traditional academic preparation for a shrinking academic job market.

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Conclusion:

A history degree doesn’t lead to one fixed job path. Graduates can find roles in museums, archives, communications, publishing, and nonprofit organizations. Current employment data reinforce this diversity: history graduates are distributed across numerous occupational groups rather than concentrated exclusively in history-related professions.

At the same time, a history degree should not be presented as an automatic pathway to any particular job or salary. Certain occupations call for specialized training, professional licensure, certification, or graduate school. Others may be accessible with a bachelor’s degree but still require relevant experience and additional skills. For a student considering history in 2027, perhaps the most useful approach is to think of the degree as a foundation rather than a job title.

Study history deeply. Learn to research and evaluate evidence. Become a strong writer and communicator. Gain practical experience. Develop digital or analytical skills that complement your interests. Link those strengths to a clear professional goal. When you pair what you’ve learned about the past with transferable skills, hands-on experience, and a deliberate plan for where you want to go, a history degree becomes more than an academic credential—it becomes a flexible base for building a career.