Many professional doctoral degrees in the United Kingdom are profession-specific and contain a mix of taught modules, research and a dissertation.
Several universities that offer professional doctoral degree programs in the United Kingdom allow students to study part-time.
In 2005, Powell and Long found that most professional doctoral degrees awarded in the UK were in the fields of engineering, educational and clinical psychology.
In 2010, Brown and Cooke reported an "explosion" of professional doctorate programs in fields such as the arts, architecture and computer science.
[4] In 2016, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) released a comprehensive study of professional doctorates which found substantial growth in these programs.
Still, the dissertation must make a substantial contribution to the relevant literature with new, practice-based knowledge and be reflective of advanced thinking.