The Union Public Service Commission’s (UPSC) Civil Services Examination (CSE) stands as one of the toughest and most prestigious tests in India with lakhs competing for about a thousand posts. Data from the last many years shows that the average share of finally selected candidates with an Engineering degree was about 60.4% between 2014-2021. However, despite their dominance in the final list, fewer than 4% opt for engineering-related subjects in the mains examination.
The Union Public Service Commission’s (UPSC) Civil Services Examination (CSE) stands as one of the toughest and most prestigious tests in India. It serves as the gateway to esteemed roles in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS), and other civil services at both the central and state levels. Each year, lakhs of aspirants vie for about a thousand coveted positions, with a gruelling three-phase process that stretches over 30 hours of testing, the CSE is as much a test of endurance as it is of intellect.
Since its inception, the CSE has evolved significantly, with changes in its structure and syllabus reflecting the shifting priorities of governance and administration. Alongside these changes, intriguing patterns have emerged in its results. In today’s story, we delve into these trends, exploring the common threads and shifts that have shaped the outcomes of this examination over the years. Consider this an extension of our earlier analyses, which you can revisit here, here, here, and here.
Note: Caution must be exercised in interpreting these trends as there’s a possibility of these observations being purely coincidental and not indicative of a standard norm. Further, all mentions of years in this story indicate the examination year.
Download the datasets on the ‘Statistics on Examinations conducted by Union Public Service Commission’ from Dataful.
6 in every 10 recommended candidates are from Engineering background
Our previous analysis highlighted that candidates with advanced degrees tend to have a higher success rate compared to those with bachelor’s degrees. Delving deeper into four primary disciplines—engineering, humanities, sciences, and medical sciences—it becomes evident that engineering graduates dominate the final merit list. Over the years, their representation has exceeded 50%, surging past 60% in recent selections.
Conversely, candidates from other disciplines have seen a consistent decline. The share of humanities graduates dropped from 43% in 2006 to 25% in 2021, medical sciences from 12% to 6%, and sciences from 14% to 9% during the same period.
The average share of candidates from Engineering backgrounds grew from 36.7% to 60.4% between 2006-13 and 2014-21 while those from Humanities fell from 39.2% to 24.3%, Sciences declined from 11.8% to 7.2% and Medical Sciences from 11.9% to 8.1% during the same period. These shifts suggest a growing emphasis on technocratic expertise in the recruitment process, signalling a possible realignment of priorities in civil services.
From Cross-Disciplinary to Domain-Focused, UPSC Optional Choices are Shifting
Since 2014, engineers have consistently made up over 60% of the total candidates finally selected in the Civil Services Exam. However, despite their dominance in the final list, fewer than 4% opt for engineering-related subjects in the mains examination. In a surprising trend, there has been a gradual shift in recent years towards choosing subjects that align more closely with their original domain. For classification purposes, the optional subjects are categorized as below.
| Category | Subjects Included |
| Engineering | Civil, Electrical, Mechanical |
| Medical Sciences | Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Science, Medical Sciences |
| Sciences | Agriculture, Botany, Chemistry, Geology, Mathematics, Physics, Statistics and Zoology |
| Languages | Assamese, Bengali, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu |
| Humanities-A | Anthropology, Geography, History, Philosophy, Psychology and Sociology |
| Humanities-B (Including business related subjects) | Commerce and Accountancy, Economics, Law, Management, Public Administration, Political Sciences and International Relations |
Between 2006 and 2013, a staggering 90% of selected candidates chose Humanities as their optional subject, while 6.7% opted for Sciences, 2.3% for Medical Sciences, and less than 1% for Engineering. But since 2014, the composition has seen notable changes. By 2021, the proportion of candidates selecting Humanities dropped to 84.3%, while those choosing Sciences rose to 7.9%, Medical Sciences to 4%, and Engineering to 3.8%.
This gradual shift suggests that more candidates are now aligning their optional subject choices with their academic backgrounds, moving away from the cross-domain trend that once dominated the exam, though their share is still significantly lower than humanities subjects.
Most Popular UPSC Optional Subjects aren’t the most successful
A deeper dive into the trends of optional subjects reveals an intriguing contrast: the subjects that consistently boast higher success rates are often quite different from those that are most popular. By “popular,” we refer to the subjects chosen by the largest number of candidates for the Mains examination.
Data spanning from 2006 to 2021 highlights that Political Science and International Relations (PSIR), Sociology, Geography, History, Anthropology, and Public Administration are among the most frequently chosen subjects, with PSIR, Sociology, and Geography leading the pack. However, Public Administration has not remained in the top three since 2016, and Anthropology only entered the list in 2021.
Despite this, when analysing subjects selected by 100 or more candidates over the past 16 years, Medical Sciences emerged in the top three for higher success rates in 9 of those years, followed by Law, which appeared 7 times, and Economics and Commerce & Accountancy, both appearing 6 times each. This suggests that while some subjects dominate in popularity, they don’t always correlate with the highest success rates.
In 2021, Engineers with bachelor degree had best conversion rate, while those with master’s degree had the worst conversion rate- in last decade
Previous analyses show that candidates with higher degrees generally have slightly better conversion rates (from interview to final selection) compared to those with bachelor’s degrees. To explore this further, we examined stream-wise variations in conversion rates from 2012 to 2021 for candidates in Humanities, Sciences, Medical Sciences, and Engineering. In 2021, engineers with bachelor’s degrees had the best conversion rate, while those with higher degrees saw the lowest conversion rate in the past decade.
The average conversion rates for candidates in Humanities and Engineering were nearly identical for both bachelor’s and higher degree holders. However, in the Sciences and Medical Sciences, higher degree holders had conversion rates more than 2 percentage points higher on average. Notably, in 2020 and 2021, the conversion rates for candidates with higher degrees in Medical Sciences were among the worst in the past decade. Additionally, 2021 marked the second-worst conversion year for candidates with bachelor’s degrees in Sciences.
