English

Spoken English

There are jobs at all qualification levels in which it is important to be good at spoken English.  

In some jobs you need to express yourself clearly and choose your words carefully, such as sales and contact/call centre staff; tourist guides; store demonstrators; radio and TV presenters; teachers of all kinds; actors and entertainers; negotiators; politicians; trade union officials; barristers and solicitors; council representatives; interpreters.

In other jobs you help people to develop their use of spoken English, such as trainers and instructors; teachers of English to speakers of other languages; speech and language therapists; hearing therapists; elocution and drama teachers. 

Report writing

Most of these jobs are for people with at least a good general education, while many are for graduates or professionally qualified people.

You need to be: 

• able to structure and express your own or other people’s ideas clearly; 
• good at spelling, grammar and punctuation; 
• able to choose words and phrases which convey your meaning accurately. 

Examples of jobs where writing skills are important include: secretaries/PAs; administrators; market researchers; legal executives; court reporters; local government officers; civil servants; solicitors; company secretaries; journalists; technical authors; information officers; publishing editors; public relations or press officers. 

In addition, there are many areas of work where professionals and managers often have to write reports, e.g. surveyors, architects, planning officers, engineers, financial services managers and social workers.

Creative English

Very few jobs let you write creatively, using your own personal style, to produce certain ideas and pictures in the mind of the reader. Instead, you normally have to conform to ‘house style’ (i.e. in a style that fits with the way things are written in your organisation). 

Jobs where you have the opportunity to write creatively include press journalists (on newspapers, periodicals, magazines and online); broadcast journalists (on TV and radio); advertising and public relations officers; copywriters; authors (of novels, plays, poetry, speeches, essays). You can also be involved with creative writing as an English or drama teacher, or primary school teacher. 

Literary English and reading 

These are the jobs where you may have to judge, analyse or critically examine the merits of other authors’ writing, or amend other people’s writing. An interest in literature and reading can be important. 

Jobs that can involve reading and literary English include those in publishing (editors, proof-readers, sales and marketing executives etc); literary agents; drama or literary critics; booksellers; producers or directors in theatre, film, TV or radio; English teachers; library and information staff (for some aspects of their work). 

Interpretation 

There are jobs where you need to interpret words very carefully, either written or spoken, to establish exactly what the writer or speaker means. Such jobs include: technical authors; advice workers, for instance, in a Citizens Advice Bureau; financial advisers; consumer protection and law centre staff; barristers, solicitors, legal executives, conveyancers and others working with the law; archivists; historians; market researchers and others who design and use questionnaires or interviews; some computer staff, such as those working in systems analysis; designers, who work from clients’ briefs; lexicographers (who write, compile and edit dictionaries); translators and interpreters.