Graduates and Job in UK – One million more professional jobs than workers with degrees to fill them

Our report tackles the misperceptions that there are too many graduates, not enough jobs for them, and that some degrees have little value for employers.

We need to address misconceptions about graduate jobs. Some say that there are too many people going to university, and others have spent many years lamenting that they cannot find the graduates they need. What is the actual state of the graduate labour market? How many graduates actually are there? How do we define a graduate job, and how many people are there in them? And what does the future hold for the graduate jobs market? If we don’t address these questions directly, then misconceptions arise. That leads to mistaken action. And above all, it means that talented young people who have worked hard for their skills and qualifications aren’t helped to find the right jobs for them. This report aims to: (1) confront some of the myths about the graduate labour market that have gone unchallenged for too long; (2) address what we know about graduate supply and demand, and look at how a better understanding of the issues may be developed; and (3) break down the most common quoted measures and data in these debates, and look at how we can use them to best understand our changing labour market.

The report finds that there are currently:

• One million more professional jobs than workers with degrees in the UK to fill them.
• Double the number of UK employees are underqualified than overqualified.
• The number of graduate vacancies is 20% higher than in 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic, with job vacancies for graduates expected to increase by 22% in 2022 compared to 2021.
• The number of UK workers in professional level employment rose while those in other roles fell during the Covid-19 pandemic, and graduates were also less likely to be furloughed or in non-graduate jobs.
• Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to increase graduate demand further with healthcare, IT and marketing expected to see particularly steep rises.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story @  Busting graduate job myths