Social Policy and Social Change with Quantitative Research
UCAS Code: L4G3
Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
Entry requirements
A level
The University will not necessarily make conditional offers to all Access candidates but will continue to assess them on an individual basis. If we make you an offer, you will need to obtain/pass the overall Access to Higher Education Diploma and may also be required to obtain a proportion of the total level 3 credits and/or credits in particular subjects at merit grade or above.
GCSE/National 4/National 5
Applicants should have grade C or 4 in Mathematics GCSE or a suitable equivalent level qualification.
International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme
Applicants should have either an overall grade of 34 or 15 points at higher level.
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)
Distinction, Distinction, Merit in Health and Social Care or Public Services. Applicants should also have five GCSEs at grade C or above.
Scottish Higher qualifications are considered on an individual basis.
UCAS Tariff
We've calculated how many Ucas points you'll need for this course.
About this course
Social Policy and Social Change addresses the challenges at the heart of our society: child protection, crime prevention, care for older people and those with disabilities, social disadvantage, and the health crisis. Combining quantitative skills, which many employers look for, with an understanding of these issues gives you a chance to contribute to the debate and offers excellent career prospects. Adding a quantitative research minor to your programme opens your mind to new ways of thinking. Starting with no assumed statistical knowledge, you graduate with an advanced package of practical quantitative skills alongside subject-specific knowledge in the theory and application of social policy.
In your first year, you take introductory modules in sociology, critical thinking, social policy and quantitative skills. In your second and final years, you investigate the nature of social problems and use research findings to evaluate policy proposals and recommendations. You extend your quantitative skills and take compulsory modules in social research methods and the welfare state. Optional modules cover a wide range of areas such as poverty, health, crime, education, homelessness, and issues relating to social disadvantage, including class, race, gender, age, sexuality and poverty. You are encouraged not just to view issues in a detached manner, but also to argue about the way things could – and should – be changed. In your final year, you choose either a dissertation with a quantitative research focus or (providing you achieve the required academic standard by the end of Stage 2) a placement module where you can put your skills into practice. Workplace experience is highly valued by employers, and the quantitative research placements offered through Kent see students completing meaningful, applied quantitative analysis for business and organisations across a range of sectors, giving you the opportunity to add concrete workplace achievements to your CV.
Our students have the opportunity to spend a year or a term abroad at one of our partner institutions in North America, Asia and Europe. You don’t have to make a decision before you enroll at Kent but certain conditions have to be met during your studies before you can change to the year abroad.
The School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research is one of the best in the country for teaching and research. Our academics are internationally recognised for their expertise in social policy.
Social Policy and Social Change is also available as a single honours programme (UCAS code L430 at institution K24) without quantitative research.
The Uni
University of Kent
School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research
What students say
We've crunched the numbers to see if overall student satisfaction here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.
How do students rate their degree experience?
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Social policy
Teaching and learning
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Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
After graduation
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Social policy
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
Just over 1,600 students graduated in social policy in 2015, which makes it one of the smaller social studies subjects. This is a popular subject at Masters level — 750 Masters in social policy were awarded last year - and so a lot of the more sought-after jobs in management and research tend to go to social policy graduates with postgraduate degrees. For those who leave university after their first degree, then jobs in social care (especially community and youth work) and education, the police, marketing and human resources and recruitment are popular — along with local government, although there are fewer of those jobs around than in the past. This degree is a bit less reliant on London for jobs than other similar subjects, so if you'd like to work outside the capital, it might be worth considering - although the jobs still tend to be in big cities.
What about your long term prospects?
Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.
Sociology, social policy and anthropology
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£18k
£23k
£25k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
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Post-six month graduation stats:
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Graduate field commentary:
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The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?
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