Finishing university is supposed to feel like a triumph. You hand in your final piece, get ready for the ceremony and all the pictures you can post to your LinkedIn, and suddenly, the world is wide open. That’s the story, anyway. In reality, for a lot of us, it feels a bit more like stepping off a moving bus and landing flat on your face.

After months of living in the rhythm of deadlines, seminars, and group projects, I’m back home in Yorkshire. It is comforting in many ways — familiar places, family close by, and getting a cheap pint in the local. But moving home also comes with the reality check that the next chapter is less about timetables and more about carving out a career in a job market that feels sparse, especially if you want to work in journalism or sports media.

The post-uni pause

One of the oddest parts of finishing uni is the silence. No constant emails from tutors, no frantic rush to the library, no looming deadlines to define your week. It is liberating, yes, but also disorienting. There’s not even a mid-week bar crawl dressed as a cowboy to distract you. You suddenly have all this space to think about the future, and that is both exciting and terrifying. I had a month down in Aylesbury with my partner while he finished up his part-time job and got ready to start his “big-boy job”, where all I did was spiral about having no prospects. Not the most fun way to spend a summer.

Hunting for opportunities in Yorkshire

The truth is that jobs in journalism and sports media outside London and Manchester are few and far between. I scroll through job boards and see the same handful of listings. A lot of them are not really journalism at all — more PR, more marketing, or roles that want three years’ experience for a salary that barely covers rent.

Yorkshire has so much going for it in terms of sport and culture. Rugby league, especially, is part of the region’s DNA. I’ve got football at all levels around me, and if I really fancied it, I could easily make the trip to go and boo the Steelers. Yet, media roles that reflect that passion are thin on the ground. It is frustrating, but it also makes me think harder about how to carve out my own opportunities.

Making your own platform

One thing I’ve realised is that waiting for the “perfect” job ad might be a long game. In the meantime, there are other ways to keep skills sharp and build something meaningful. Writing blog posts like this one. Pitching freelance pieces. Recording podcasts, even if they start out as conversations in the bedroom with a cheap mic.

The job market might be sparse, but that does not mean voices from Yorkshire have to be quiet. If anything, it feels more important to keep creating, even if the route is not a straight line into a newsroom.

Looking ahead

Moving home has reminded me of what I love about this place. The sense of community, the sport, the character. It has also made me more determined to find a way to keep telling stories here, even if the traditional career path is not laid out neatly in front of me. It’s also a chance to manage the post-degree slump, rediscover my passions, and get back into creating things because I want to – not because my degree depends on it.

So here I am: degree finished, kettle on, job boards open. The market might be thin, but the passion is still there. And maybe that is the first step in building something new.