West Yorkshire Finance & Professional Skills (FPS) Report Launch

The annual What do graduates do? publication by Jisc covers national graduate outcomes data for students from business and administrative studies.

Interest from Mayors and CAs, eg. WY Creative Industries showcase and in YNY Film and TV identified as priority growth sector and features in the related skills review

The annual What do graduates do? publication by Jisc covers national graduate outcomes data for students from creative arts subjects.

This is a priority area for all CAs/LEPs and many have existing analysis in this area eg. The South Yorkshire Skills and Employment Evidence Base includes a section on "Healthier Futures" which includes data on the health and social care workforce and students.

However, YU has led work on the intersection of sustainability and employability at universities resulting in a Good Practice Guide for Engaging Students with Sustainability through Service Learning.

Upcoming regional analysis by Jisc is due to cover numbers, share, and change in occupations, as well as share of industries by region/sub-region (in line with the recently published regional analysis for Scotland).

The annual What do graduates do? publication by Jisc covers graduate outcomes data of students from six key subject areas at a national level.

Institutionally held careers registration (CR) data could help fill in understanding of students preferences and thinking around careers (see information about pilot in existing activity). However, sector analysis of CR data would be more complex. Only 5 universities (3 in WY and 2 in YNY) of the 9 YU member institutions that collect CR data have a question on sector preferences. Additional capacity would be required to be able to bring together and centrally analyse this data.

However, there is an ongoing project at Jisc at the moment to try to work out which bits of that data are currently usable, and what they might do with the rest of it to improve it to the point where organisations like YU can use it.

The International Higher Education Commission has also produced a report on the need for better data on international students and graduates.

Some institutions (3 in WY and 1 in HEY) also collect data on work location preferences and could institutionally look at the preferences of international students but this would be difficult to do look at on a regional scale.

In previous discussions there was interest in the overlap of EDI and graduate migration, as well as acknowledgement of the complications and large sample size needed. Any detailed work in this area would require significant additional capacity.

The 2023 YU conference data session included exploration of supply and demand of graduates, with a focus on equality, diversity and inclusion.

An interactive tool by WonkHE using Census 2021 data at Local Authority level explores proportion of local workforces with level 4 or above qualifications and the proportions in different occupations, with SOC 1-3 being used as a proxy for graduate jobs.

Graduate Outcomes collects a self-assessment of if a qualification was required for a graduate's work. HESA publishes this for England and have also published a UK breakdown by occupation through there work on job quality, we could look at the responses for YU member students through the YU tailored dataset.

Sub-regional employer skills surveys could give indications of employers skills demand and their views of skills supply eg. HEY Employer Skills Survey.

Getting a move on: The creation of a new graduate mobility marker HESA, Nov 2022

Graduate migration patterns in the UK analysis by Charlie Ball, 2021

Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) includes data on 'Full cycle movement (home, study and current regions)' and 'Interaction of region and earnings at provider level'. There was also a regional breakdown of outcomes in the 2016 to 2017 tax year published in 2019.

Geographical mobility of young people across English towns and cities: March 2024 ONS release with an interactive tool and UK analysis using LEO data

How graduates move across England blog with dashboard based on ONS LEO data at Travel To Work Area level, WonkHE 2023

From Campus to Career: Unravelling the Geography of Graduates blog with visualisations, December 2023

The gainers and losers from the United Kingdom's university-related migration: A subregional analysis of Graduate Outcomes Survey data academic article with maps Feb 2024

We could look at some elements of graduate voice questions for YU providers through the tailored dataset but may require additional support with any detailed analysis.

Upcoming regional analysis by Jisc is due to cover the graduate voice question about work being 'meaningful' by region/sub-region (in line with the recently published regional analysis for Scotland).

HESA provides open statistics on numbers of students and graduates by provider (that could be combined to sub-/region level) and some figures are available by region of provider.

Workforce qualification levels across England and Wales data: Census 2021 shows the highest qualification levels and percentage that represents of the workforce for region (Y&H) and local authority areas.

The DfE produce an annual publication of graduate labour market statistics, which presents labour market conditions for graduates, postgraduates, and non-graduates living in England, based on data from the ONS Labour Force Survey.

In 2022, the National Centre for Universities and Business produced An insight report into the UK's Graduate Entrepreneurs which looked at who graduate entrepreneurs are (including where they are from and where they are located) and what they do.

A 2019 report by Charlie Ball looked at Graduates in self-employment and microbusinesses covering UK domiciled graduates from 2016/17 using DLHE.

4 universities (3 in WY and 1 in HEY) collect data on location preferences of students. There is significant variation in how locations are categorised making it difficult to bring this together on a regional level.

• Over half (58.1%) of students entering HE are at the early 'Decide' stages of their career thinking and around one in five (19.9%) report that they have not starting thinking about their career options.

• There is a high level of demand for experience from students entering HE across Yorkshire, with a quarter being categorised as looking for experience. From our sample this amounts to over 10,000 year one students in the region prioritising looking for experience in how they report their career thinking, which would likely to be an underestimation of demand across the region. This includes those looking for exploratory experience, which could help them explore and discover new sectors.

In this context, universities are well positioned to support employers to engage across the student lifecycle, while students are developing their perceptions and attitudes towards work, to enable better access to graduate talent. YU is working on making entry points into universities for such engagement clearer.

Movers scored higher than stayers in every region but Northern Ireland. Stayers also score relatively highly in Yorkshire and the Humber, and the difference between movers and stayers in Y&H is not statistically significant.

Following the workshop, Yorkshire Universities is sharing the updated collection of resources publicly to support and encourage the development of further insights that can facilitate effective strategy and action to support graduate talent across the region.

Purple is used in this Padlet to highlight key considerations for those conducting research in this area.

Hyperlinks are used throughout to link to resources, these will appear as underlined text that you use to click through to other webpages.

The resources are generally categorised under key themes that have been identified by YU and key partners, however, you may find it easier to use the search function in the top right corner to find specific resources.

The Home Office includes information on international student visas in their summary statistics and statistics on study visas.

In May 2024, the ONS published an update on their work to understand international students within migration statistics and provisional estimates of long-term international student migration.

WonkHE produced analysis of the May 2024 releases.

Key findings included:

• 73% of surveyed graduates felt that the Graduate route visa met their expectations, reporting higher job satisfaction compared to those on other visa types.

• Through the Graduate route visa, international graduates add value to sectors that are vital to the UK economy, with many working in key sectors such as healthcare and education.

• International graduates will continue to support the UK economy on returning home. 71% of surveyed graduates feel a lasting connection with the UK, and 57% are more likely to engage in business with the UK due to their educational experiences.

• The most common incentive for remaining in the UK was to gain work experience (48%).