Politics and Economics with Placement Year

Politics and economics together form one of the most powerful analytical combinations available to undergraduates. Politics examines how power is organised, exercised, and contested, and how collective decisions are made through institutions, ideologies, and social forces. Economics provides the formal tools for understanding how markets work, how policy affects behaviour, and how resources are allocated across societies.

The two disciplines are deeply interdependent: political decisions shape economic outcomes, and economic forces shape what is politically possible.

At the University of Reading, this four-year, full-time programme with a placement year develops your understanding of both disciplines in depth, while the placement year gives you a structured period of professional experience before you complete your final year. You will study political theory, comparative politics, international relations, and the institutions of government alongside macroeconomics, microeconomics, and the quantitative methods that contemporary economics requires. The placement year allows you to put your academic skills to work in a professional context, whether in government, the private sector, an NGO, or a policy organisation, and to develop the networks and practical experience that make a real difference when you enter the job market.

Graduates from politics and economics programmes at Reading go on to a wide range of careers. The civil service, public administration, economic consulting, finance, international organisations, journalism, think tanks, the charity sector, and policy research are all common destinations. The combination of political understanding and economic analysis is particularly valued in roles that sit at the intersection of government and business, and in organisations that need to navigate complex policy environments.

Many graduates also continue to postgraduate study in politics, economics, public policy, or law.