"Professional degree" is a category, not a single degree — it covers the specific credentials required to enter a licensed, regulated profession, like a JD for law, an MD for medicine, a DDS for dentistry, a PharmD for pharmacy, or a DVM for veterinary medicine. If you've seen these degrees grouped together and wondered what actually makes them a category rather than just "different master's degrees," this guide explains the structural things they have in common — and, just as importantly, how they differ from the academic master's and PhD degrees they're often confused with.
What Is a Professional Degree?
A professional degree is a degree that exists specifically to qualify a graduate for entry into a particular licensed or regulated profession. The defining feature isn't the degree's level (many are technically doctorates, like the MD, JD in some classification systems, and DVM) — it's that the degree is a required, standardized credential for practicing a specific regulated occupation, generally followed by a licensing exam before you can actually practice.
That's structurally different from most academic degrees. A master's in economics or a PhD in chemistry is valuable and can lead to many different careers, but it isn't a legal prerequisite for practicing "economics" or "chemistry" the way a JD is a prerequisite for practicing law in most US states, or a PharmD is a prerequisite for practicing as a licensed pharmacist. Professional degrees exist because the profession itself is regulated — by a bar association, a medical board, a pharmacy board, a veterinary board — and that regulator has decided a specific degree plus a specific exam is the standard gate for entry.
Common examples of professional degrees include:
| Degree | Profession | Typical Licensing Step After |
|---|---|---|
| JD (Juris Doctor) | Law | Bar exam (jurisdiction-specific) |
| MD (Doctor of Medicine) | Medicine | Licensing exams (e.g., USMLE in the US) plus residency |
| DDS / DMD (Doctor of Dental Surgery / Medicine) | Dentistry | National/regional dental licensing exams |
| PharmD (Doctor of Pharmacy) | Pharmacy | Licensing exams (e.g., NAPLEX in the US), and FPGEE for foreign-trained pharmacists |
| DVM (Doctor of Veterinary Medicine) | Veterinary medicine | National licensing exams |
| BSN/MSN-based nursing licensure, DNP | Nursing | NCLEX (US) or equivalent (NMC in the UK, AHPRA in Australia, NNAS in Canada) |
How This Differs from an Academic Master's or PhD
A few structural differences are worth understanding, because they change how you plan around a professional degree compared to an academic one:
- They generally don't build the way academic degrees do. An academic master's typically builds on a bachelor's in a related field, and a PhD builds on that master's or a closely related bachelor's. Professional degrees mostly don't work this way — you don't need a bachelor's in "pre-law" to enter a JD program, or a bachelor's in "pre-medicine" as a formal major to enter an MD program (though certain prerequisite coursework, like biology and chemistry for medicine, is usually required regardless of your major). The professional degree is often the first specialized training in that field, not a continuation of undergraduate specialization.
- Licensure, not just graduation, is the real gate. Finishing the degree qualifies you to sit for a licensing exam — it doesn't, by itself, authorize you to practice. This is a meaningful difference from most academic master's degrees, where finishing the degree is generally the whole requirement.
- The programs are usually structured and standardized. Professional degree curricula tend to be far more fixed than academic graduate programs, often with less room for elective specialization, because programmatic accreditation bodies (tied to the profession's licensing requirements) set detailed requirements for what the curriculum must cover.
- Career outcomes are narrower and more defined by design. An MBA or an MS can lead to a wide range of roles; a JD, MD, DDS, PharmD, or DVM is built around one profession, with the expectation that most graduates will go on to practice in it (though non-practicing "law degree, non-legal career" type paths do exist and aren't unusual for JD holders specifically).
A Note on "Professional Doctorate" vs. Academic Doctorate
Some professional degrees carry the title "Doctor" (MD, DVM, PharmD, DDS/DMD, and — depending on classification — JD), which sometimes causes confusion with academic research doctorates like the PhD. They're doctorates by title and, in some classification systems, by formal degree level, but they aren't research doctorates: there's typically no dissertation requirement, and the degree is built entirely around clinical or professional training rather than producing original research. This is a similar but distinct split from the research-vs-practice doctorate distinction covered in our PhD and EdD guides — professional degrees like the MD or PharmD sit closer to the "practice" end of that spectrum than even a practice-focused doctorate like a DNP or EdD, because they're specifically oriented around clinical/professional licensure rather than organizational leadership or applied research.
An LLM is a useful edge case worth flagging here: it's a postgraduate law degree pursued after a first professional law degree (a JD or LLB), typically for specialization or jurisdiction-switching, rather than a standalone entry point into the legal profession — see our LLM explainer for how that fits into the broader picture of legal education.
Where to Learn More About a Specific Professional Degree
Because each professional degree leads to a different regulated profession, with its own admissions process, curriculum, licensing exam, and international-student considerations, the details are genuinely specific to each field rather than generic across "professional degrees" as a category. The site has dedicated guides for several of the major ones:
- Law (JD/LLB) — see our guides on studying law in the USA (JD), UK (LLB), Canada, and Australia, plus LSAT vs. GRE for law school and IELTS/TOEFL requirements for law school
- Medicine (MD) — see our guides on studying medicine in the USA, UK, Canada, and Australia
- Pharmacy (PharmD) — see our guides on the best pharmacy universities in the USA, UK, and studying pharmacy in Canada and Australia, plus the FPGEE guide for foreign pharmacy graduates
- Nursing (BSN/MSN/DNP) — see our guide comparing NCLEX, NMC, AHPRA, and NNAS licensing pathways, and our DNP explainer
If your target profession isn't listed above, the same general questions apply regardless: what's the required professional degree, what's the licensing exam, and does that license transfer or require re-qualification if you plan to practice in a different country than where you trained. That last question in particular is worth researching early for internationally trained professionals, since licensing requirements for practicing in a new country are often far more involved than simply having the equivalent foreign degree.