UK / The fit between graduate labour market supply and demand

In The fit between graduate labour market supply and demand, Gaby Atfield and Kate Purcell examine 3rd year UK undergraduate degree final year students’ perceptions of the skills they have to offer and the skills employers seek.

Main findings

• As they approached the end of their undergraduate courses, over 80% of respondents believed that they have the skills employers are likely to be looking for when recruiting for the kind of jobs they wanted to apply for.

• Almost three quarters of final year students thought that the experience of being a student had made them more employable than they would otherwise have been.

• Those who were studying vocational subjects (e.g. subjects allied to medicine, law and education) were most likely to believe that the subject they had studied would be an advantage in looking for employment.

• Students at the highest tariff universities were most likely to believe that the university they attended would be an advantage in looking for employment.
• Students recognised that specific qualifications represent only a minimum for getting a graduate job and that employers would look for evidence of softer skills to discriminate among similarly qualified job applicants.

Choosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor from

Read More @ Futuretrack Stage 3 Working Paper 4: The fit between graduate labour market supply and demand | HECSU.ac.uk.