Human Geography

Human geography asks how people and places are shaped by each other, examining the economic forces, political structures, social inequalities, and cultural dynamics that produce the landscapes we inhabit and the communities we live in. It is a discipline that connects the local to the global, asking how individual places are shaped by international processes of trade, migration, and capital, and how the inequalities that divide people within and between countries are produced and sustained. Human geography is also deeply engaged with questions about sustainability, climate change, and the relationship between human societies and the natural environment.

At the University of Leicester, this three-year full-time programme includes a sandwich year with placement, a year abroad, and work placement opportunities throughout, making it one of the most practically enriched human geography degrees available. The sandwich placement year gives you extended experience within an organisation where geographical skills and knowledge are applied, whether in planning, environmental consultancy, development, policy, or research. The year abroad gives you the chance to study human geography in a different national and cultural context, deepening your comparative understanding of the global processes you have been studying and developing the independence and adaptability that professional life requires.

Leicester has a well-established geography department with research strengths in migration, urban geography, development, and climate change. The university's location in a diverse and economically complex Midlands city provides a rich practical context for the study of human geography.

Graduates work in urban and regional planning, environmental consultancy, international development, public policy, GIS and spatial analysis, housing, regeneration, and education. The combination of academic depth and practical experience from the placement and year abroad gives Leicester graduates a strong platform for careers in this broad and varied field. Postgraduate study in geography, urban planning, development studies, or environmental management is a further option.