What Do Graduates Do 2014 released

The latest edition of What Do Graduates Do? was released on 24 September, an analysis of the destinations of 256,350 full and part-time first degree graduates surveyed in January 2014, six months after they had left university. Overall, the picture is much improved from the year before; some of the key findings are:wdgd-2014

  • More graduates employed: increased from 73.6% to 75.6% year-on-year.
  • Drop in further study as graduates take advantage of improving employment conditions: fell from 13% to 12.4% year-on-year.
  • More graduates in professional and managerial work: increased from 64.9% to 66.3%.
  • Smaller proportion of graduates in non-professional jobs: for example, graduates working as retail, catering, waiting and bar staff fell from 13.7% to 13%.
  • Mature graduates doing particularly well: a higher proportion (77.2%) were in professional and managerial work compared to all first degree graduates (66.3%).

The full document can be downloaded from the Higher Education Careers Service Unit (HECSU) website at  http://www.hecsu.ac.uk/assets/assets/documents/wdgd_september_2014.pdf.

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47% of recent graduates in non-graduate jobs – really..?

“Jobs warning for new graduates”, cautions the BBC, “Half of recent UK graduates stuck in non-graduate jobs” bemoans The Guardian. Headlines emanating from the latest ONS report, Graduates in the UK labour market 2013 which claims 47% of recent graduates are in non-graduate jobs, up from 37% in 2001. But are the career prospects of our university leavers really that bad? Not so argues Charlie Ball from the Higher Education Careers Service Unit (HECSU) as he responds to these headlines in a reality check article in The Guardian (20 November). Charlie points to a number of caveats which help provide a little more context and encouragement for the classes of 2013 and 2014.

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HEFCE Employment Performance Indicators

The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) published the latest employment performance indicators (EPIs) on Thursday 4 July – http://www.hesa.ac.uk/content/view/2912/393/

On the same day, The Guardian published an article entitled “Oxford and Cambridge outperformed on employability” – http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/jul/04/oxford-and-cambridge-outperformed-on-employability – which presents the indicators in ranking order; the first time that these have been published in this way. However, the EPIs were never designed to be ranked in this way (see below, ‘Why not league tables?’ from the HESA website)*, instead EPIs are intended to offer an objective measure of how a higher education institution (HEI) is performing against its (HEFCE) set benchmark.

However, the fact is that The Guardian has published them as a league table and provided a minimum level of explanation or context to readers. Continue reading

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Work experience three times more likely to land graduate job

The latest High Fliers research – “Class of 2013” (published 13 June 2013) – reveals that students who completed an internship or other vacation work with employers during their studies were three times more likely to receive a definite job offer before leaving university than those who had done no work experience at all. A little more evidence to back up what’s already known! Continue reading

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Destinations 2012 schools data published

The Careers Centre has just published individual reports for schools and departments at The University of Reading, showing details of the first steps into work and further study of those completing courses in 2012. As well as summaries of main activities undertaken, the reports also show figures for the percentage of those in full-time work who are in professional/managerial work (one of he Key Information Set indicators) plus breakdowns by job title/employer name, course title/institution name (for those progressing to higher level study).

The data can be accessed via the Careers Centre’s staff-only pages at http://www.reading.ac.uk/careers/staff-only/dlhe/reports/12/

A summary report will be made available in early July.

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First Destinations of Disabled Graduates

No new data, but the authors have conducted some useful analysis over the lifetime of the series of these reports, and comment on longer-term trends. The report details the experience of graduates from specific groups and aims to challenge many widely-established views on the opportunities available to disabled students.  Find out more

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Careers Centre Labour Market Summary

Summary of paper presented at the May meeting the Student Development and Employability Sub-Committee… view now »

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Modest increase in graduate vacancies

From HECSU blog – http://hecsu.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/incomes-data-services-have-just.html -Incomes Data Services (IDS) has just released their new survey of graduate starting salaries They see a modest increase in the number of graduate vacancies this year – up about 8% on last year Continue reading

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Graduate labour market – not all doom and gloom!

AGCAS Vacancy Survey

The AGCAS Vacancy Survey differs from those of AGR and High Fliers, which question recruiters for larger companies’ graduate training schemes. Universities carry vacancies for organisations from across the economic spectrum, including smaller companies and the not-for-profit sector – see http://www.agcas.org.uk/articles/692-Graduate-labour-market-still-on-the-up for more information

While the most recent AGR and High Fliers surveys reveal a slightly mixed picture for those graduating this Summer, UK HE heads of Careers Services believe the graduate labour market is on the up. Continue reading

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Salaries frozen for new graduates but upturn in opportunities

Graduate starting salaries are set to fall to their lowest real-terms level since 2003 this summer as 90 per cent of businesses freeze their offers to recruits, according to analysis released by Incomes Data Services (IDS). But graduate recruitment is set to rise by 9.1 per cent as the job market recovers, IDS predicts. The services sector is planning to boost graduate numbers by 38 per cent in the coming year, while the public and not-for-profit sector expects to increase intake by 6.7 per cent, a turnaround from last year’s 5 per cent reduction.

Read more at http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=419654&c=1

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