While the experience of higher education undoubtedly opens up a wide range of career opportunities, it is worth remembering that there are many other routes to success if you do not want to go to university.

Elsewhere on this website, you will find articles advising you to research the career implications of studying particular subjects at university. Linked with this is the question of whether it would be just as relevant in some cases to consider a non-degree route to the qualification you would like to obtain.

There’s no escaping university, of course, if you aspire to be a barrister, doctor, dentist, vet or physiotherapist. It’s also true that a degree can speed up the process of obtaining a professional qualification, even when there are alternative routes. On the other hand, no degree means not only considerable savings on tuition fees and student maintenance but also the opportunity to gain early experience in the workplace while earning a reasonable salary.

The Royal family may not have too much to worry about when it comes to supporting one of their number through university. However, the decision a few years ago by Prince William – second in line to the throne – to join his younger brother Harry at Sandhurst opens a fascinating question: can we possibly measure whether William, with his Geography degree from the University of St Andrews, makes a better army officer than Harry, who had a gap year after Eton but then went straight to Sandhurst for his military training? William may have brought more maturity and greater breadth of experience to his army role but Harry clearly had a head start in understanding the basic business of surviving as a soldier.

In this particular case, we will probably never know for sure whether the graduate brother might rise to a higher rank than his less academic sibling, not least because William will presumably have a major career change one day, when he leaves the army to become king. (Incidentally, no one has ever suggested that a degree is an essential qualification for a future monarch). We can, however, draw parallels when discussing the relative merits of degree/non-degree options and trying to help you decide on the most appropriate course for you, even if you are neither a prince nor a princess.

We might equally ask whether Jamie Oliver or Gordon Ramsay would have been so successful in their respective kitchens if they had allowed themselves to be distracted in their late teens by too many essays and examinations; whether Richard Branson’s career might have taken off in the same way had he followed an academic path rather than his preferred flight path; whether Alan Sugar would be able to hire or fire apprentices on prime-time television if he had spent three crucial years on a university campus instead of honing his skills on the streets, selling cigarette lighters and TV aerials.

Our politicians insist that the economy needs ever more graduates, yet there is no need to have a degree to become a Member of Parliament. We might sometimes be forgiven for thinking an Oxford education an essential requirement for the post of Prime Minister, yet non-graduates such as John Major or Jim Callaghan have been as successful in reaching the highest political office in our land as graduates David Cameron, Tony Blair or Margaret Thatcher.

Billionaire businessman Sir Philip Green, head of the Arcadia group of fashion retail stores, left school at 15 with no qualifications. A few years ago, he opened the Fashion Retail Academy in central London for young people who don’t want to go to university. He says that he is far less bothered about whether a potential employee has a degree than he is about their initiative, common sense and hunger to do the job. Many young people, he claims, drift into university because they are unsure of what else to do, or because they don’t want to disappoint their parents, and that there is a lack of open discussion about the alternatives.

So, without wishing in any way to denigrate degree-level study, we suggest that it is timely to remember that, by choosing not to participate in higher education, you can achieve just as much as those who head straight to university.

With this in mind, we have identified 30 highly rated career options that do not always require a university degree:
1.    Accountant
2.    Actor
3.    Air Traffic Controller
4.    Airline Pilot
5.    Architectural Technologist
6.    Army Officer
7.    Artist/Illustrator
8.    Banking Executive
9.    Broadcasting Researcher
10.    Business executive
11.    Careers/personal adviser
12.    Chartered Surveyor
13.    Civil Servant
14.    Construction Manager
15.    Financial Adviser
16.    Health Service Manager
17.    Hospitality/Hotel Manager
18.    Human Resources Manager
19.    Insurance Underwriter
20.    Journalist
21.    Legal Executive
22.    Local government administrator
23.    Marketing Executive
24.    Merchant Navy Officer
25.    Musician
26.    Photographer
27.    Police officer
28.    Retail manager
29.    Royal Air Force Officer
30.    Royal Navy Officer

Tell me more!
For more information on any of our 30 career suggestions, simply click on the relevant title.
To explore a range of issues about whether higher education is the right or wrong choice for you, click here.