PhD Perspectives 25/26

Can you give us a brief overview of your research and what inspired you to choose this topic? 

My research looks at what it means to be a ‘skilled’ migrant today. Three big social trends central to our time are the mass expansion of higher education, the expansion of the EU free movement regime, and the growth of so-called ‘gig’ or digital platform labour. To these, we might now add the ongoing AI revolution. My work traces how these factors are directly shaping the lives of migrants — specifically those we might think of as highly skilled, with university-level (and above) qualifications — who come from countries that joined the EU in or after 2004, such as Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria. I ask: are these migrants getting the opportunity to use their skills and qualifications when they migrate, and if not, why not? In asking these questions through interviews about migrants’ lives in Ireland and elsewhere, I also try to be critical about the concept of skill itself. Often, describing someone as skilled seems straightforward and objective (and in certain contexts it can be) but as my research shows, the story is often more complicated. 

What has been the most surprising or interesting finding in your research so far? 

For me, the most interesting finding has been how online platforms can radically shift the way we think about skill. Two of my forthcoming papers, for example, look at online language tutors who teach Polish and Romanian through a website called Italki. The model is simple: a student creates an account, browses tutors’ profiles, and books a lesson. Yet becoming a tutor typically doesn’t require formal qualifications beyond language fluency. When I spoke to tutors about what makes them skilled, or what makes someone a ‘real’ teacher, soft skills (what are sometimes called ‘ascribed’ rather than ‘earned’ skills) were consistently treated as more important; being flexible, being friendly, and tailoring lessons to each student. By contrast, more ‘objective’ criteria, like passing teaching exams or mastering particular grammatical concepts, were rarely invoked. This speaks to what some sociologists call a ‘new social construction of skill’. In a contemporary idiom, you might say that skill becomes less a matter of credentials and more something like ‘vibes’. For migrants, this can matter because it allows them to narrate themselves as skilled professionals, even when, by other measures, they are not using the qualifications they have accrued and are excluded from the local labour market. 

How do you think your research could impact the field of Sociology or society as a whole? 

I have fairly modest expectations for the broader impact of my work. My main hope is that it will be useful to the participants I interviewed, helping them make a bit more sense of their experiences (on these platforms, for instance) or at the very least that they find it interesting. If there is a wider contribution, it is to ongoing debates about what ‘skill’ is and how it relates to migration. My view is that what it means to be skilled is likely to change radically over the next fifty years: connections, relationships, and dispositions may matter more for where people end up in the labour market. That, in turn, will affect what it means to be a skilled migrant. I hope my work, in a small way, helps alert us to the implications of these shifts. I don’t really develop policy recommendations, but after four years of researching this my sense is that there may be diminishing returns in relentlessly ‘upskilling’ on the supply side. We also need to focus on whether there are meaningful ways for people to contribute on the demand side. 

What advice would you give to other students who are considering pursuing a PhD in Sociology? 

My advice for anyone considering a PhD in sociology would be to go for it, provided you have the passion and persistence to see it through, and are prepared to make certain sacrifices. I say this not only because I have enjoyed it and believe in pursuing knowledge for its own sake, but because, after researching skill, I think the depth and breadth of understanding — the Verstehen — you develop towards a particular object of study is genuinely invaluable in a labour market where it is increasingly hard to distinguish yourself. The participants I interviewed had diverse abilities and professional backgrounds, but what often predicted success was relentless curiosity: a concrete commitment to learn and learn and learn, and then to apply that knowledge in distinctive ways. A PhD is a good home for that disposition. That said, my practical advice is to make sure you also upskill in a concrete sense. I’m a qualitative researcher, but my supervisor did me a real favour in pushing me towards a postgraduate certificate in statistics. In the past, a PhD was mainly about accruing expertise and producing knowledge; now, I think it should also be treated as a chance to build transferable skills. 

March 2026