Social & Public Policy with Quantitative Methods

Social and public policy with quantitative methods is a degree designed for those who want to understand the most important challenges facing contemporary societies, from poverty and inequality to health, education, housing, and environmental policy, and who want to engage with those challenges with the rigorous analytical toolkit that quantitative research provides. Policy without numbers is often ineffective; numbers without policy context are often meaningless. This degree trains you to bring both together.

At Glasgow the Q-Step Centre provides specialist training in quantitative methods that goes well beyond what most social science degrees offer. You will develop skills in data analysis, statistical reasoning, working with large datasets, and using software used by professional researchers and policy analysts, all within the substantive context of social and public policy. Policy study covers the theory and practice of welfare states, public services, comparative policy analysis, and the political and institutional contexts in which policy is made and implemented.

The four-year full-time programme includes a year abroad, giving you the opportunity to study social policy from a comparative international perspective, which is particularly valuable for a discipline concerned with how different societies make collective choices about welfare and justice.

Graduates are sought after by government departments, research institutes, think tanks, international organisations, NGOs, and the private sector wherever quantitative analysis of social data is needed. The combination of policy understanding and quantitative skill is genuinely unusual and is increasingly in demand as data becomes central to how public services are designed and evaluated. Many students continue to postgraduate study in social policy, economics, statistics, or public administration.