I have been spending some of my time, in between meeting students, reading through the most recent edition of What Do Graduates Do? The annual publication looks at what graduates from UK universities are doing fifteen months after they graduate. This year’s publication focuses on those students who graduated in the summer of 2020 and provides a wealth of information on what those students were doing. As well as telling us what graduates are doing the publication also provides an insight into the prospects of those due to finish their degrees and useful information for those making decisions on what degrees they aspire to apply for.
The summer of 2020 was a particularly difficult time for students leaving university, COVID 19 was sweeping the world before it. That summer significant restrictions were in place across the UK. By the end of June 2020, half a million people had lost their jobs and vacancies had fallen by nearly 40% from pre-pandemic levels. The result was that the graduates leaving university that year were faced with a particularly challenging employment market.
Looking at the data in the report it is clear that by the time students were surveyed the labour market in general, and the graduate labour market in particular had recovered to pre-pandemic level and in most sectors exceeded them. The outcome was that by the time they were surveyed 79% of students were employed, either full or part time, approximately one fifth were in continuing education with just 4.2% being unemployed without having a job or course of study lined up to start within the next month.
The main content of the publication is a breakdown of degrees into fields of study and then data looking at what students who completed a degree in that subject are doing after fifteen months, in full time work, part time work, further study etc, the types of work people are doing, a top ten list of professional jobs and for those who are doing further study, what type of further study are they doing. The data provides many interesting details, some that have stood out to me are.
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Graduates with degrees in technology, engineering and maths were most likely to be in full time employment, 65.9%, while those completing humanities degrees were least likely to be in the same position,45.2%, closely followed by those holding creative degrees,46%.
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Across all degrees, employment in health related careers was the most common career area for graduates to enter at 16.5%. Business HR and Finance was the only other career area attracting over 10% of graduates.
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Students completing science degrees are most likely to continue with further study, 19.38%. Students with Chemistry and Physics are most likely to pursue a further qualification with over 50% of them studying for a doctorate.
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Education was the most likely sector to attract humanities graduates with marketing, public relations and HR also being sectors that were attractive to these students.
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On the face of it, outcomes for Social Science graduates portray a challenging employment market. This is likely to contribute to these graduates having the second highest rate of further study but is also a reflection of the types of employment that traditionally attract these graduates, social work, education psychology and law, all of which require significant further study.
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Business and administrative studies subjects showed consistently higher than average numbers of graduates in full-time employment, the highest being marketing (68.7%) and the lowest finance and accountancy (58.8%), still above the all- subject average of 57.3%.
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Across all of the degree subjects covered by the survey civil engineering had the highest level of graduates in employment at 83.6% with just over 78% of those students working in a field related to their degree.
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