What do graduates do? : About the data

What is what do graduates do?

What Do Graduates Do? (WDGD) presents the destinations of UK-domiciled first degree, and Foundation degree graduates from the 2009/10 academic year. It gives a profile of how many leavers entered employment, the type of work they were doing, the numbers going on to further study, and the numbers unemployed six months after graduation.

It aims to help those who are considering entering higher education, as well as teachers and advisers with responsibility for careers guidance, and parents concerned about their child’s future prospects immediately after university.

Where is the data from?

The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), a government agency, collects national first destination information from higher education graduates on an annual basis. The information for this report was collected through a questionnaire sent out in winter 2010/11 to all UK- and EU-domiciled students who graduated in the previous academic year. The results of this ‘Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education’ (DLHE) survey represent a snapshot of the employment status and types of work of graduates six months after they graduated.

What the data can tell us

The DLHE survey asks graduates what their current activity is, whether it be work, study, looking for work or even travelling. If employed, it asks for the job description and the kind of company the graduate works for, to give us a better understanding of the nature of the graduate’s employment. It also helps us to get a picture of the patterns of further study and how destinations differ across subjects.

What the data cannot tell us

The DLHE survey only presents a snapshot of graduates’ destinations six months after they have received their qualifications. It does not ask for future career plans and as a result, cannot be used to answer questions about the intentions of new graduates, nor of their reasons for choosing some of the career options. In addition, only UK-domiciled graduates have been included in this publication.

Source of raw data: HESA Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education 2007/8. HESA cannot accept responsibility for any inferences or conclusions derived from the data by third parties.