What do graduates do (Scotland)?

By Charlie Ball, Labour Market Analyst, HECSU

In the absence of the scheduled speaker, Charlie Ball of HECSU delivered a workshop on the What Do Graduates Do? Scotland project, funded by HECSU, Futureskills Scotland, Careers Scotland and Strathclyde University Careers Service.

The project is designed to provide an overview of destination data for graduates from Scottish universities, analogous to the national publication, What Do Graduates Do? This will help students and guidance professionals by providing a reliable, accessible information source on the Scottish graduate labour market scene. It will also act alongside existing data resources from the Teaching Quality Information project, and from Scottish organisations, to provide a clear picture for stakeholders wishing to explore the employment of Scottish graduates.

What Do Graduates Do? Scotland used data from the HESA Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) Survey 2004/5, to examine the outcomes of graduates from Scottish universities at all levels from 2005, six months after they graduated. The data was then grouped using the methodology from the national publication to gain a picture of outcomes and job destinations for graduate from Scottish institutions. It also contains articles on issues in the Scottish graduate labour market to supplement the data.

The workshop did not present a great deal of the data produced in the project as this was still largely in draft form (see footnote). Scotland was found to produce just under 10% of the national first degree graduate population in 2005, and to have a higher proportion of female graduates than the national population.

Initial outcomes for first degree graduates were generally more favourable than those for the whole country. Employment and further study rates were higher than those for the whole UK. Scottish graduates were also more likely to go to work outside the UK, and the Republic of Ireland is known to be a popular destination for graduates from Scotland. The proportion of Scottish graduates taking doctorates, going on to teaching and studying professional qualifications was higher than for the UK as a whole, whilst unemployment was significantly lower.

The employment picture was dominated by the health sector, with a much higher proportion of Scottish graduates entering health-related employment than for the UK as a whole. Scottish graduates, however, were proportionally less likely than the UK as a whole to enter almost every other type of employment, with engineering being a notable exception. The arts and media, and sales and marketing positions showed this effect the most strongly.

It is envisaged that What Do Graduates Do? Scotland will be freely available online, and the workshop sought to explore how the information might be delivered, and where it ought to be available. Future developments were also discussed, and a number of possibilities have been identified. It would be useful to be able to illustrate outcomes at postgraduate level with information on the real occupations obtained by individual graduates. Also considered potentially valuable were examinations of Scottish graduate outcomes on a regional level, analysis of graduate underemployment, and work to try to determine the graduate salary premium for different subjects.

Comparative information on the differences between Scotland and the UK as a whole, and examination of Scottish performance against OECD countries were also proposed. More detailed information for international students was also thought to be potentially worth including if it were possible to gather it.

Footnote

The report is now available at HECSU.

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