Topics covered include British and other European, as well as US politics, social issues, art, literature, cinema, science, the media, history, philosophy and psychology.

Some prominent intellectuals have featured in Prospect, including economists Joseph Stiglitz, Sen and Angus Deaton, writers such as Lionel Shriver, Clive James, Toni Morrison and Margaret Atwood, as well as scientists like Martin Rees.

Prospect received worldwide attention in October 2005 when it published its list of the world's top 100 public intellectuals, which included Ziauddin Sardar, Noam Chomsky, Umberto Eco, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker and Christopher Hitchens.

In 2011 Prospect published the winning short story of the Royal Society of Literature's V. S. Pritchett Memorial Prize, Carys Davies' ‘'The Redemption of Galen Pike'’.

Since 2004, the magazine's founding editor, David Goodhart, has stirred controversy with a series of articles arguing that the increasing diversity of the United Kingdom may weaken the bonds of solidarity on which the welfare state depends.

The winner of the most recent 2017 Think Tank awards (held at the Institute of Directors on 10 July) was the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, based in the UK, for its "very strong analytical appraisal of the social conditions in Britain".