For a decade, the career advice was simple: study engineering or computer science, and the job market will always want you. New hiring data suggests that advice quietly expired. The graduates landing jobs outside their original field aren't the coders — they're the English majors, the communications grads, the people whose training taught them how to think across problems instead of how to solve one very specific one.
That's the uncomfortable center of a new analysis built on LinkedIn hiring data and reported by Forbes: entry-level hiring has fallen across every major category of degree since 2019, but the majors falling hardest are exactly the ones students were told were the safest bets.
Which University Majors Are Most Likely to Get You Hired in 2026?
According to the LinkedIn analysis, humanities and social science graduates are proving the most resilient in today's market — not because those fields are booming, but because the skills they teach transfer across industries more easily than a narrow technical specialty does. English tops the versatility ranking at 69%, followed by Visual & Performing Arts and Communication & Journalism. Business & Marketing and Computer & Information Sciences round out the top five.
Rank | Major | Versatility |
1 | English | 69% |
2 | Visual & Performing Arts | 68% |
3 | Communication & Journalism | 67% |
4 | Business & Marketing | 64% |
5 | Computer & Information Sciences | 63% |
6 | Social Sciences | 62% |
7 | Interdisciplinary Studies | 60% |
8 | Homeland Security & Law Enforcement | 58% |
9 | Parks, Recreation & Fitness | 56% |
10 | Psychology | 55% |
Why Are Engineering and Computer Science Graduates Struggling to Switch Industries?
Engineering and computer science graduates still land strong starting salaries and plenty of job openings in their own field — that part hasn't changed. What's changed is what happens when that specific field slows down. Because their training is so specialized, these graduates have far fewer adjacent industries willing to hire them if their original path narrows. Engineering ranks near the bottom of the versatility list, alongside education and health professions, even though it remains one of the higher-paying majors on paper.
A safe major and a flexible major used to mean the same thing. In 2026, they're pulling in opposite directions.
The decline in entry-level hiring hits nearly every major, not just the traditionally 'soft' ones. Engineering has seen the sharpest drop — a 25% fall in entry-level hiring since December 2019 — followed closely by computer and information sciences, interdisciplinary studies, and business and marketing, each down more than 20%. Even English and psychology, which top the versatility rankings, aren't immune; they've simply had more places to land when their first-choice industry tightens.
What's Actually Driving the Shift?
Two forces are colliding at once. Employers have slowed overall graduate hiring — entry-level recruitment sits roughly 20% below pre-pandemic levels — while artificial intelligence has started absorbing exactly the kind of narrow, repeatable technical tasks that used to be junior engineers' and junior developers' bread and butter. A computer science graduate whose main value was writing routine code is now competing with a tool that does it for free. A communications or business graduate, whose main value was judgment, writing, and adapting to unfamiliar problems, is harder to automate around.
What This Means If You're Choosing a Major Right Now
The temptation is to read this as "skip STEM, study English." That's the wrong takeaway. Computer science and engineering still offer higher starting pay and plenty of open roles right now — this data isn't saying don't study them. It's saying the old assumption that a technical degree is automatically the safer long-term bet no longer holds up against how the job market is actually behaving.
The more useful question isn't which single major to pick — it's how transferable your specific skill set will be if your first industry choice slows down. A software engineer who can also write clearly, explain technical decisions to non-technical people, and adapt across industries is better positioned than one who can only code. A communications graduate who pairs writing with a technical skill — data analysis, basic coding, SEO — is better positioned than one who has neither.
For students and job-seekers watching this data from Lagos, Abuja, or anywhere in the diaspora chasing a US or remote-first career, the lesson isn't which country's degree to chase. It's that the job market of 2026 is rewarding range over specialization — and nobody's career, no matter how technical, is exempt from proving it can bend.
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