What can you do with a Music, Theatre or Performance degree?

Music students performing at Falmouth University

Whether you want a career performing on stage or behind the scenes, a degree in Music, Theatre or Performance combines specialist teaching with entrepreneurial skills in self-promotion to prepare you for the performing arts industry.

Career options

Career opportunities for performing arts graduates are broad and varied, spanning performance, education, and technical fields. Graduates may work as professional musicians, actors, or dancers, either as part of a company or as freelance artists. Others use their creative skills to teach or lead community arts projects.

Beyond traditional performance roles, a degree in Music, Theatre, or Performance also opens pathways into directing, producing, and technical areas such as lighting, sound, and stage design. As new technologies continue to shape immersive and interactive productions, demand for skilled technical professionals in the creative industries is growing.

Job opportunities

Our Music, Theatre, and Performance degrees prepare graduates for a broad range of careers in the creative industries. You could become a:

Songwriter
Session Musician
Music Manager
Music Producer
Music Journalist
Tour Manager
Corporate Event Manager

Director
Film or Television Actor
Stage Performer
Voiceover Artist
Lighting Technician
Lighting Designer

Stage Manager
Production Manager
Sound Technician
Sound Designer
Educator
Community Practitioner

Graduates in the spotlight

Our graduates have gone on to carve successful careers in the following roles:

Artistic Director of National Dance Company Wales
Visual Creative Coordinator at Warner Brothers Records
A&R Coordinator at Island Records
Music Video Executive Producer at Stink Films
Lighting Designer at Wireless Festival
Venue Technician at the Royal Opera House
Senior Label Manager at The Orchard
Founders of the music and sound design studio, The Soundery
Freelance Composer
Freelance Dancer
Dance Production Consultant
Community Arts Practitioner

Lily Lyons performing at Falmouth University

Sinead Ferguson

Acting graduate stars as female lead in feature film set in Cornwall

29 October 2025

After spending the summer of her second year on set of the Cornwall-based film Pieces of Us, Sinead ...

Acting graduate stars as female lead in feature film set in Cornwall

Lily Lyons

Popular Music alumna to release debut album on major label Fiction Records

10 September 2025

Singer songwriter and Popular Music BA alumna Lily Lyons is set to release her debut album Reopen th...

Morveren

Grieving the Living: Music alumna Anna Roscoe releases debut EP

05 August 2025

For Music BA(Hons) alumna Anna Roscoe, songwriting has always been an essential way to process emoti...

Grieving the Living: Music alumna Anna Roscoe releases debut EP

Piers Headshot

Acting alumni brings student project to world-renowned festival

01 July 2025

What began as a short film created during Piers Mackenzie’s final year at Falmouth has blossomed t...

Acting alumni brings student project to world-renowned festival

Bakani

“Falmouth was the perfect place to find my feet”: From dance student to Artistic Director

10 April 2025

Bakani Pick-Up has gone from studying Falmouth’s Dance & Choreography BA(Hons) course to being app...

“Falmouth was the perfect place to find my feet”: From dance student to Artistic Director

Graduate Ruairi Wakefield on touring with his musical heroes

12 March 2025

From lecture halls to international tour venues, Ruairi Wakefield went from applying to the Technica...

Graduate Ruairi Wakefield on touring with his musical heroes

Acting graduate stars in new Edinburgh Fringe show

14 August 2024

Acting BA graduate Piers MacKenzie began his run portraying Daniel Radcliffe in Joshua Kaplan’s TE...

Acting graduate stars in new Edinburgh Fringe show

Lily Lyons 1

Credit: Sequoia Ziff

Popular Music graduate Lily Lyons signs to major label Fiction Records

27 June 2024

2024 has been quite the year for singer songwriter Lily Lyons, a 2018 graduate from Falmouth’s Pop...

Catherine Hillier BA Music Graduate wins a BAFTA Award

Graduate Spotlight: A journey from Falmouth University to a BAFTA Award

05 June 2024

Catherine Hillier graduated from Falmouth University with a BA in Music in 2018, and her career has ...

Graduate Spotlight: A journey from Falmouth University to a BAFTA Award

Elliot Orban

Creative Music Technology graduate joins one of Australia's leading media companies

27 March 2024

Elliot Orban has recently joined Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) as their Assistant Network Operation ...

Creative Music Technology graduate joins one of Australia's leading media companies

Postgraduate study

An undergraduate degree in the performing arts may also lead you down the path of postgraduate study. A master’s degree gives many people the opportunity to gain skills in a particular field and develop a deeper understanding of the subject.

Explore more

Knowledge and skills

Depending on your specific area of interest, a degree in Music, Theatre or Performance will help you to build the skills, knowledge and creativity to become a confident practitioner.

Our Academy of Music & Theatre Arts (AMATA) is a purpose-built live venue and a vibrant hub that’s home to performers, technicians and managers in the making. Our students have access to:

11 performance and rehearsal spaces
13 practice rooms
Over 1,150sqm of sprung dance floors
State-of-the-art digital and analogue recording studios with 4 control rooms and a live room
Professional live theatre venue
Computer labs for CAD and audio software design

On our Performance-focused degrees, you’ll learn specialist skills such as:

Vocal and accent training
Microphone techniques
Improvisation
Character development
Training in ballet, jazz and tap

You’ll also study a range of self-marketing tools for building a successful career as a performer, such as CV writing, creating an online artist profile and professional audition techniques.

Guided by academics and technical course teams, you’ll learn practical and design skills such as:

Scenography
Stage rigging
Sound and lighting production
Projection mapping
VRML and motion capture
3D computer aided design
Digital audio
Video editing
Post-production

Transferable skills

Students also develop a variety of transferable skills that are desirable to a range of employers. These include:

Ability to articulate ideas and communicate information both visually and verbally
Team working skills with the ability to work collaboratively to pursue shared goals
Skills in time management and self-directed study
A strong work ethic and tenacity to move projects forward
Innovative solutions to problem solving and a willingness to take creative risks
Entrepreneurial skills in marketing your work and building professional networks

Career support

Our Music, Theatre and Performance degrees are underpinned by practical and collaborative work, so you’ll gain real-world experience while you study. You’ll be involved in organising live performances as well as working at our summer schools, events and artist residencies.

You’ll build professional networks through guest lectures and workshops led by industry professions. Previous visits include Katie Kay (Real World Studios), Dom Bilkey (National Theatre), Katie Lusby (Punchdrunk, Gecko), Motionhouse and Company Chameleon. We also work with Spotlight to run a range of career masterclasses each year, where students can skill-up and learn directly from prominent professionals in a variety of genres.

Our courses also help students to develop skills in self-promotion and marketing through assessed work on portfolios, social networking and CV writing.

When you study at Falmouth, you have access to our dedicated Employability Service. Students can sign up for weekly career workshops and events, take practice interviews and get support on finding work or going freelance.