What do graduates do three-and-a-half years after graduation? (Winter 07/08)

• Summary
• Introduction
• Overview of destinations
• Subjects
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Graduate jobs
• Salary
• Satisfaction
• References

Summary

Pearl Mok from the Higher Education Careers Services Unit (HECSU) summarises the key findings of the first Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) Longitudinal Survey, carried out on a sample of graduates from the 2002/03 cohort three-and-a-half years after graduation, and conducted by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA).

back to top

Introduction

Each year, the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) collects destination data from new graduates about their activities six months after graduation. The data of first degree, HND and foundation degree graduates from this Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) survey is reported in our annual publication What Do Graduates Do? (see the article What Do Graduates Do? 2008).

Although information from DLHE has often been useful, this only tells us graduates’ initial outcomes, at a time when many are still settling down in their first employment, looking for their first job, or have just begun their further study. In order to investigate graduates’ outcomes further on, HESA has introduced the DLHE Longitudinal Survey. The first of these was carried out on a sample of graduates from the 2002/03 cohort in the winter of 2006/07, investigating graduates’ activities three-and-a-half years after graduation.

Unlike the DLHE ‘Early Survey’, which was a census issued to all 412,580 graduates from the 2002/03 cohort (with a response rate of 75%), only 62,040 of the respondents from the Early Survey were selected to take part in the Longitudinal Survey, of which 24,825 responded. As with the Early Survey, graduates at postgraduate, first degree and other undergraduate levels, and who were UK or other EU domiciled, were included.

In this article, we present some of the key findings on UK-domiciled graduates from this longitudinal study [1].

back to top

Overview of destinations

According to the Longitudinal Survey, three-and-a-half years after graduation in 2002/03:

• almost three quarters (74%) of UK-domiciled graduates were in full-time paid work only (including self-employment);
• 7% were working part-time;
• 9% were working and studying;
• 5% were studying only;
• 2% were assumed to be unemployed.

Table 1 shows the activities UK-domiciled graduates were engaged in at the time of the Longitudinal Survey, broken down by qualification level and mode of study (footnote).

Overall, graduates with postgraduate qualifications were more likely than first degree graduates to be working full-time who, in turn, were more likely to be doing so than graduates from other undergraduate courses. Graduates from full-time courses were slightly more likely to work full-time compared with graduates from part-time courses, while part-timers were more likely than full-timers to work part-time. However, there was little difference in the total proportion of those in employment (full-time, part-time, voluntary and unpaid work) between full- and part-time graduates, and the percentage unemployed for both groups was 2%.

For those postgraduates who were in full-time employment in the Early Survey, 84% were still employed full-time three-and-a-half years later, while 5% were in part-time employment and 6% were working and studying. Amongst postgraduates who were employed part-time in the Early Survey, 46% were still working part-time at the time of the Longitudinal Survey and 40% had moved into full-time employment.

For first degree graduates, 81% of those who were working full-time in the Early Survey were still doing so at the time of the Longitudinal Survey, and two-thirds of those who were employed part-time (66%), working and studying (66%), or in further study only (67%), had moved into full-time employment.

Three-quarters (74%) of the first degree graduates who were unemployed six months after graduation were employed full-time three-and-a-half years later, and 6% were employed part-time. Amongst postgraduates, the figures were 56% and 18% respectively.

In addition, over a third (35%) of first degree graduates had achieved further qualifications since the Early Survey, compared with 32% of other undergraduates and a quarter (24%) of postgraduates.

back to top

Subjects

In both surveys, graduates in medicine and education were amongst the most likely to be in work, whilst graduates in maths were amongst the most likely to be studying, and those from creative arts and design courses were among the most likely to be unemployed (10% in the Early Survey and 6% in the Longitudinal Survey). On the contrary, although engineering and technology graduates had been amongst the most likely to be unemployed in the Early Survey (11%), they were amongst the least likely in the Longitudinal Survey (1%).

back to top

Gender

At every qualification level and for both full- and part-time modes of study, men were more likely to be in full-time work than women. Overall, just under four in eight (79%) males were in full-time paid work three-and-a-half years after graduation compared with 70% of females. Females, on the other hand, were more likely to work part time (9% compared with 3% of men) or working and studying (10% compared with 7% of males).

Amongst all full-time graduates and part-time first degree and other undergraduates, males were more likely to be unemployed at the time of the Longitudinal Survey. This gender difference is the greatest amongst full-time other undergraduates of which 7% of males were unemployed compared with 2% of females.

back to top

Ethnicity

Only 2% of White graduates were assumed unemployed at the time of the Longitudinal Survey compared with 5% of Black graduates and 4% of Asian graduates. Asian and White graduates were more likely than Black graduates to be in full-time work (75% of Asian graduates and 74% of White graduates compared with 67% of Black graduates), whilst Black graduates were slightly more likely to be studying (16%) than White (14%) or Asian (13%) graduates.

back to top

Graduate jobs

Using the classification scheme devised by Elias and Purcell [2], the Longitudinal Survey revealed that the vast majority (80%) of graduates from the 2002/03 cohort were working in ‘graduate occupations’ three years after graduation. The percentages employed in graduate occupations, unsurprisingly, depended on the qualification level and subject of study: 93% of postgraduates were in graduate jobs compared with 77% of first degree graduates and 74% of other undergraduates. Amongst first degree graduates, over nine in ten graduates from medicine and dentistry (98%) and subjects allied to medicine courses (93%) were in graduate jobs, whilst only three in five (60%) graduates in mass communications and documentation and two thirds (67%) of graduates in business and administrative studies were in graduate occupations.

back to top

Salary

Table 2 shows the salary distribution of graduates who were in full-time employment at the time of the Longitudinal Survey by qualification level. Postgraduates who were employed full-time commanded the highest median salary at £28,000, compared with £22,000 for first degree graduates and £20,000 for other undergraduates. At all qualification levels, males were more likely to be at a higher salary band: over half of male postgraduates (54%) were earning £30,000 or more compared with 37% of female postgraduates; for first degree graduates, this was 23% compared with 12%, and at other undergraduate level, 20% compared with 9% of females.

back to top

Satisfaction

Three-and-a-half years after graduation, 37% of graduates (UK and other EU domiciled) reported that they were ‘very satisfied’ with their career to date and almost half (48%) said they were fairly satisfied. However, over a quarter of first degree graduates in mass communications and documentation (27%) and computer science (26%) reported it was very likely that they would have chosen a different subject, whilst only 9% of graduates in medicine and dentistry, and 10% of those from subjects allied to medicine, architecture, building and planning, and education, reported this.

Footnote

Percentages based on 52 or fewer graduates (unweighted base) have been suppressed by HESA.

References

[1] Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Institutions Longitudinal Survey of the 2002/03 cohort: Key findings report published 2007, HESA, October 2007. The report can be downloaded from www.hesa.ac.uk

[2] SOC (HE): A classification of occupations for studying the graduate labour market, Researching Graduate Careers Seven Years On research paper no.6, Peter Elias and Kate Purcell, March 2004. http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/ier/research/completed/7yrs2/

Copyright © 2002-2012 HECSU | Content last updated: February 2008