Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

University of Bath

The Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences, the largest faculty at the University of Bath, is home to six departments. We span a wide range of social science specialisms, such as economics, international education, sport management, international relations, interpreting and translation, forensic psychology, and international development. Our approach to teaching and professional development is designed to leave you well-equipped to kickstart or change careers. Many of our courses offer placements or consultancy projects to give you hands-on experience as part of your degree. Our teaching excellence and real-world experience encourage wider thinking, and help you realise your potential to make a positive impact on society.

Why study at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences?

Our research impacts the world around us and informs our teaching. It spans economic activity, physical and mental health, education, political and social policy, and climate change.

We collaborate with a range of specialist University institutes, such as the Centre for Development Studies, the Institute for Policy Research, and the Centre for 21st Century Public Health.

In the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026, we are 13th for Sports-Related Subjects, Joint 31st for Development Studies and joint 57th for Psychology. Learn from international experts in your field who bring their research into the classroom.

5,385

postgraduate students

39

courses

1

Scholarship at this university listed on FindAMasters

Top 150

in the QS World University Rankings 2026

Bath  United Kingdom

main campus

Upcoming Open Days & Webinars


About the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

We offer a wide range of programmes at MA, MSc and MRes level, as well as PhD courses and Professional Doctorates.

Our departments

  • Economics: Study Economics, Applied Economics or Behavioural Economics, with options to specialise in finance and banking.
  • Education: Dive into areas like international education and TESOL, with part-time and distance-learning options available.
  • Health: Specialise in sports and health, with degrees such as Sport Management or Football Medicine, many offered flexibly through distance learning.
  • Politics, Languages & International Studies: Broaden your knowledge of international relations, security and gender issues; study abroad on a Euromasters course; or prepare for a career as a professional linguist or interpreter.
  • Psychology: Specialise in clinical, forensic or health psychology; or study the overlap between psychology and economics.
  • Social & Policy Sciences: With full- and part-time options available, you can research public policy, criminology, international development and humanitarian issues.

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Bath is a bustling UNESCO Heritage City – small and safe, but with plenty to do and see. All of our teaching facilities are located on our campus 10 minutes outside the city, with easy access to lectures, eateries, green spaces, and the Sports Training Village.

Find out more on our Living in Bath web pages.

Hear directly from our current students and alumni by visiting our blog pages.


"Military General Practice has exposed me to a high volume of musculoskeletal injuries and I wanted to be able to offer my patients a better service in the primary care setting in addition to developing my interest in the field. The MSc will offer me opportunities to work in more diverse sporting and clinical settings in the future.

I have most enjoyed the collaborative elements of the MSc, getting to know other students and tutors and learning collectively, particularly on the residential Clinical Weeks. The assessments have certainly been challenging, and when I look back at those I have completed over the past 2 years, the amount of rigour and depth of learning involved is clear."

"My motivation to study an MSc in Economics and what I'm doing currently in my career stems from seeing the divide between the rich and the poor in Mumbai. During the pandemic I saw the plight of migrant workers who had to return to villages because of lockdowns; that is when I realised my interest lay in affordable housing for all and therefore in economics. I had already studied some economics units as part of my undergraduate degree in engineering and that is when I became interested in development which drove my interest towards a master’s in economics. That was a transition point for me.

All of my combined experiences motivated me to find solutions for affordable housing in the future. I wanted to work in the real estate industry, on the finance side and work towards affordable housing solutions for the future. Working in finance, in private equity in real estate, was my ambition and economics was the route to it.

I now have a role working with directly with the Chief Finance Officer in a fairly new company with 6,000 employees worldwide, a great experience to start my career."

"I chose to study International Development with Conflict and Humanitarian Action at Bath as this pathway allowed me to take optional units in economics, which allowed me to combine my two interests.

Having the chance to do my practicum with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies was huge. It gave me international experience and helped me build strong professional connections. I published a report on this, which demonstrated my ability to deliver."

Some of my favourite units were investment banking, financial econometrics, as well as the Python course in my second semester. The latter was especially engaging and taught me a lot – I ended up using Python a fair bit in my consultancy project, so I felt prepared to take on the work.

Having done my consultancy project in sustainability, I really think it’s an area I’d like I focus on in my career. The course helped me narrow down my interests: I can now look for jobs in sustainable finance with the confidence that I have the skills to work in that sector.

My master’s also had a global outlook so I can apply that foundational knowledge in my home country and not just the UK.

I’m in my second year of the course now and have been enjoying it a lot. Here in Hong Kong, it felt a bit like getting spoon-fed education, where teachers just give a lecture, give you some reading, and then exams. The master’s here now focuses mostly on how you develop yourself career-wise and think critically - you’re more self-reliant in acquiring the theoretical knowledge. I wouldn’t have been able to do what I do now without the course; Bath’s network in the sporting industry really helped me make those connections.

It’s self-paced, but the material isn’t overwhelming. You do need to organise your time and it’s up to you to take in as much or as little of the lectures and materials as you want.

I attended one of the residentials in Bath in 2025 and it was great to see the sports facilities. The Sports Training Village almost doesn’t feel like it’s part of a university because it’s so big!

I chose the Bath TESOL course because it’s designed to welcome students without previous teaching experience, which made it an ideal fit for me. In addition, the comprehensive course design was another key factor that attracted me to this course. It covers both theoretical and practical aspects of language teaching, so I felt it would provide a strong foundation for building my skills as a TESOL professional.

About a year after graduating, I also completed my CELTA training. CELTA is a practical course designed for teachers with no prior experience, and it allowed me to put many of the theories I learned during my MA in TESOL into practice. I’m now based in Taiwan, working as an online ESL teacher.

Studying at Bath was a really positive experience for me. The community here is very kind and welcoming, which made settling in much easier.

"In education, you can do so many different jobs. You can be a teacher, an administrator, work in recruitment, be involved in policymaking; there are so many different routes. I graduated from MA International Education and Globalisation (IEG) at Bath in 2013 and since then I have held many different jobs with non-profits and educational organisations. These have given me a diverse and well-rounded experience in my career so far.

Right now, I work in international student recruitment and admissions. My job is to help people from the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) region to go to the United States and Europe to study.

I work with students in countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, North Asia and Western Asia, where the options to go to big universities in different areas of the world aren’t always easy to find. I feel very lucky because my job allows me to travel all over the world and live in different places. I have lived in Paris and Moscow since leaving my home in the United States, and have been able to experience lots of different cultures."

"Going from my studies straight into a job definitely felt like a step in the right direction, and I was able to do my final project, a policy brief rather than a dissertation, all the way from here. The University had given out a list of topics and partner organisations – first come, first served – and I got to work on a project that looked at market anomalies and overconfidence in financial markets. As someone who’s investing in the stock market themselves, I found it extremely interesting to look at actual, practical research that analyses different aspects of why certain things happened in the past and what it could mean for the future, and to put all that into a single piece of work."

"After my undergraduate degree in psychology, I worked for a year as a learning support assistant within an additional needs department at a college. I got to support autistic individuals and people with disabilities such as Fragile X syndrome and global developmental delay. This role allowed me to help students socially and academically. It was a great experience! I took that year out because I wanted some hands-on experience after my undergraduate degree, which had been quite coursework and exam-heavy – which was great, but I wanted to apply what I’d learned!

Bath really felt like an equal playing field, not just from individual advisors but from the Department of Psychology and the University as a whole. Disability support services and my external autism mentor were always there, and even the accommodation team went out of their way to try and get me a quieter room on the top floor without me even asking."

"I found behavioural economics fascinating and wanted to delve more deeply into the intersection between economics and psychology; so MSc Applied Psychology and Economic Behaviour was perfect.

Bath had the perfect balance of high student satisfaction, high performing economics and psychology departments, experts in applied policy research, and was situated in a beautiful part of the UK. You can enjoy an urban city life, but also can be in the great outdoors within minutes. The campus is extremely welcoming, with a great student body."

I gained a clearer perspective on how organisations function and make decisions in a global context. Broadening my worldview and equipping me with analytical skills and strategic sharpness to assess and navigate the complexities of international business and politics this has been invaluable.

What I found particularly exciting was the breadth and depth of content, exploring regions and their unique dynamics, including the Middle East, south east Asia, and Sino-US relations. This exposure enabled me to grasp overarching trends while delving into specific areas of personal interest. Such an approach has been instrumental in my development as a regional consultant, providing me with a rich understanding of different geopolitical landscapes and their implications.

The ability to specialise in areas that intrigue me made the learning experience both engaging and highly relevant to my career aspirations.

Health psychology really captures that dynamic when it comes to studying things like addiction, diabetes, or children with physical illnesses and how that affects their mental health.

The placement was definitely the highlight of the course, and it was another factor that made me choose Bath in the first place.

I got hands-on experience working on a research project within the Department of Psychology and could see how that research is actually going to help people. We looked at developmental language disorder, which was an eye-opening experience and gave me real insights into how the University aims to bring about societal change.

"My voluntary experience opened my eyes to the traumas faced by many individuals in the UK and the factors that influence offending behaviour from childhood. This made me more empathetic towards people who have offended or at risk of causing harm to others, and guided my decision to support this population.

The department was highly knowledgeable and delivered excellent lectures. Additionally, many of the lectures were delivered by external staff with specialist expertise. We could really see the quality of what we were learning and there was a strong focus on understanding the links between psychological theory and practice."

"Since I got into net politics, I became interested in the connection between innovation and regulation. Being a Euromasters student, I was able to explore this interest and gain expertise through a wide range of related optional units. With emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), I find it fascinating learning about the different strategies governments and the EU pursue to make technology beneficial for society. In my current job, I enjoy learning how companies use technologies to develop new business models in sectors such as mobility."

One of the reasons I chose the University of Bath was the variety of modules (or ‘units’) on offer. Coming from a Montessori educator background, I wanted to gain a broader scope of knowledge in the field of education. A few modules specifically caught my attention at Bath, as very few universities offer them in the UK – such as curriculum studies and educational assessment, with a combination of modules related to social science, psychology and education innovations.

Studying online can be a bit strange at times, especially if you’ve not done it before! You get to study at your own pace, which is a great bonus. You get exposed to students all across the world, who work in very different educational systems.

"Before doing my master’s, I did my undergraduate in Health and Exercise Science here at Bath. I always knew I was interested in health and exercise, but didn’t want to go back to the Czech Republic to do only sport or nutrition as a specialism.

Coming towards the end of my undergraduate degree, I still didn’t have a real clue what I wanted to do. Over the years I’d got interested in business, marketing and management, so when the MSc Sport Management graduates got called to the stage in the graduation ceremony, it was the first time I realised that Bath offers a master’s that combines my interests.

So that’s when I decided to look up the course page and applied! It covers the business side of things but still overlaps with sport; marketing is thrown in there as well and of course the research aspects. The option of doing a consultancy project with an external company was also a great to get some exposure to real-life scenarios."

"I was born in the Philippines and raised in Hong Kong; I moved to the UK in 2010 to study medicine. I always knew I wanted to become a doctor, and what drew me to the UK was the straightforward training structure; no pre-med, just straight into six years of medicine, then onward to practice. I graduated in 2016 and have been working as a doctor for the past nine years. I’m currently in my second year as an orthopaedic registrar and intend to complete my training and attain my fellowship.

I guess I’ve also taken a slightly unexpected route as I am also currently in my third and final year of the master’s in Football Medicine. I’ve always had a thing for soft tissue injuries and have done some work around ACL management and injury prevention. What drew me to this course was its breadth. You don’t just study the anatomical side; it’s also biomechanical, psychological, even cultural. That holistic perspective really appealed to me. As a future surgeon, I don’t just want to fix the problem, I want to understand it in context to proactively address preventative strategies."

"I wanted to learn and absorb, and found myself being fascinated by theory and enjoying the journey. Eventually, I got interested in ‘stochastic terrorism’, which I have subsequently written about in both my undergrad and master’s thesis and want to pursue more in a PhD. It looks at how politicians use language to demonise targeted individuals, and how this gets amplified on social media and results in susceptible individuals potentially acting on this rhetoric by committing acts of violence.

It is, unfortunately, a very relevant topic currently, due to the rise of right-wing populist politicians in various countries. It’s not really been researched thoroughly yet, so it’s rewarding to build on it and each level I go up in my studies, it gets more in-depth. My other areas of interest include American politics and the alt-right. I feel the topics I’m studying are so important and deserve the time to be discussed."

"I remember my dad saying that language was the key to understanding the world. Even at an early age, that stuck with me and led me to become fascinated with the English language.

I worked at McKinsey in China as part of a big in-house translation team after they approached Bath directly for students. Employers know that Bath will produce students with exceptional qualities. My teachers put me forward for the interview and I was accepted!

I have now moved to work in the communications department of pharmaceutical company, Merck, Sharp & Dohme (MSD), where my job revolves around external and internal communications for the company leadership, with interpreting being an essential part of my work.

I’ve now had a decade of experience in interpreting and translating and I still see a huge gap between what AI can do and what a top linguist can deliver. It is about empathy, about predicting, about contextualising, about understanding."


Register your interest with the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences


Main campus

University of Bath

Bath

South West

United Kingdom

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Medicine (26) Biological Sciences (4) Economics (10) Sociology (33) Geography (17) Politics & Government (30) Social Work (32) Psychology (31) Finance (14) Business & Management (5) Education (11) Forensic & Archaeological Sciences (16) Languages, Literature & Culture (21) Anthropology (2) Law (22) Mathematics (25) Linguistics & Classics (23) Environmental Sciences (13) Nursing & Health (27)