The most popular specialties among applicants and their prospects in the labor market

On October 31, the 2024 admission campaign officially ended, and on November 18, the Ministry of Education and Science presented for public discussion a draft admission procedure that will determine the rules for the 2025 admission campaign. Education.ua summarized the results of the admission process and found out what employment prospects students who chose the most popular specialties have.

Results of the admission campaign 2024

The 2024 admissioncampaign officially ended on October 31. Education.ua analyzed its results: the top ten most popular specialties have not changed since the summer, when the main wave of admission took place. The favorites have kept their places - Psychology confidently took the place of the most popular specialty in 2024 with 49,907 applications from applicants. Also in the top three were Management (48,162 applications from applicants) and Philology (43,761 applications).

Despite some difficulties with the IT sector in Ukraine, the top ten most popular specialties also included 3 IT specialties - Computer Science, Software Engineering, and Cybersecurity and Information Protection.

Prospects for humanities and technical specialists in the labor market

TheMinistry of Education and Science and future applicants are already preparing for the next admission campaign. To help applicants choose a specialty thoughtfully and weigh the pros and cons, Education.ua analyzed the labor market prospects of graduates of the most popular fields. Of course, the situation on the labor market may change in 4-5 years of study, but still, applicants and their parents should be guided by the actual state of the economy and labor market demand. After all, the future profession should be chosen wisely and with a bit of pragmatism.

The professions selected for the study are: marketer, economist, psychologist, English translator, HR manager, lawyer, cybersecurity specialist, system administrator, teacher, and programmer.

Experts from the job search site Work.ua helped determine the median salary for each profession. The average figure for 6 months was taken for the calculations: from April 2024 to October 2024. This way, the sample was not affected by atypical and isolated vacancies with too high or low salaries.

The labor market analysis shows that IT specialists have good prospects in the labor market, but future psychologists and teachers should be aware of the rather modest salaries. While the average salary of IT specialists ranges from 24 to 40 thousand hryvnias, psychologists earn an average of 19 thousand hryvnias. Teachers earn even less - 18 thousand hryvnias, and according to Education.ua, the salary of beginning teachers is almost at the minimum wage level - 6,693 hryvnias.

The number of vacancies posted on Work.ua over the past six months shows that teachers and HR managers have the best chance of finding a job. And there is low demand for specialized professionals, such as English translators or cybersecurity specialists.

The study demonstrates that the choice of profession should be based not only on the popularity of the field, but also on its prospects in the labor market. According to the results of the admission campaign, the vast majority of applicants want to be psychologists, managers, philologists, and IT specialists, and the latter have the highest chances of finding a job and competitive pay. Marketers and lawyers also have high chances of finding a job with decent pay.

Education.ua advises applicants who want to choose a humanitarian specialty to consider additional qualifications to increase their chances in the labor market.

Ігор Льов