While MSc degrees are still sometimes seen as intellectual stepping stones to a PhD, there are signs that many are becoming more vocational and skill based.

“I think the MSc world is changing,” says Nick Tyler, professor of civil engineering at University College London. “Five or ten years ago MScs would have been seen as precursors to PhDs. Now that is much less the case. In fact it has almost completely turned over.

“Most MScs I can think of are seen much more as requirements for progression in industry. By that I mean everything other than academia. Some of that is being encouraged by bodies such as professional institutions, which see the attainment of a masters degree as one of the criteria heading towards some formal professional qualification, for example, chartered engineer status.

“MScs are becoming increasingly driven by industrial need, so a lot of them are providing skills, some sort of qualification and access to techniques, as much as they are a purely intellectual extension of knowledge,” Tyler says. “The dilemma coming out of that is: where are our PhD students going to come from in future?”

Fiona Sandford, careers service director at London School of Economics, says MSc courses are recognising the importance of developing their students’ soft skills, such as the ability to work and communicate with others.

LSE has internship programmes that place postgraduate students with MPs, think-tanks and policy organisations as researchers or assistants. Last autumn LSE also launched a two-year masters in management programme, which includes a compuls-ory internship and plenty of skills development. The programme, the only one of its kind in the UK, combines the best elements of MBA programmes, including seminars with chief executives and case study work.

Students need a first-class degree or its equivalent and deep pockets: the fee is £34,704. Fifty students have enrolled and many are supported by company scholarships.

Warwick University’s department of plant and environmental sciences has two industry focused MSc courses: enterprise in horticulture and plant bioscience for crop production. Both courses offer students the chance of a four-month industry placement.

Students taking Lancaster University Management School’s MSc in management complete a company project dissertation, usually with small to medium-sized enterprises. For the MSc in project management, students spend their summer working on an in-house company project.