More than half of UK workers do not use their degree education in their career according to a survey by jobs site CV-Library.

The survey showed that 52.8% of workers do not use their degree education within their current position and 57% say their job is not related to their degree at all.

Moreover, 41.5% of employees would change their degree if they could, while 44.3% of workers said that they do not think degrees are worth the time and money spent.  The industry where workers are most likely to use their degrees in their job is in Medicine (84%), followed by Arts and Graphics (71.4%). Meanwhile, the industries where workers are least likely to use their degrees in their jobs is Retail (92.9%), followed by sales (80%).

“Many industries have a mandatory degree requirement and often demand niche qualifications that can only be obtained during university, making the need and value for a degree very clear,” Lee Biggins, founder and managing director of CV-Library, said. “However, there are also many sectors that can be entered with alternative qualifications and experiences and it’s important that students fully research their options to ensure they are not paying for an education that won’t be used.”

In addition, when exploring the reasons behind choosing a degree education 19.8% advised that they attended university to secure a good job, while 41.2% stated that they ‘took a degree for the sake of it’. A further 25.8% said that they went to university to gain life experience, with 4.9% stating that the main motive was to meet new people. 

Furthermore, 71.9% of workers that had taken a degree felt that they would have been more beneficial if they had included more business and office-based skills, reiterating that these modules would be more helpful for their current career.