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Graduate regional mobility (Winter 08/09)
- Regional Retention of Graduates
- Summary
- Introduction
- Inflows and outflows
- Retention of graduates
- North East
- North West
- Yorkshire and the Humber
- East Midlands
- West Midlands
- East of England
- London
- South East
- South West
- Wales
- Scotland
- Northern Ireland
Regional Retention of Graduates
In the third part of our look at the distribution of first degree graduates around the UK, Stuart Marriott (De Montfort University), and Charlie Ball (HECSU) look at the retention of graduates around the regions and how that has changed over time.
Summary
In the five graduating years from 2002/3 to 2006/7, there have been few major changes in the proportion of graduates gaining degrees in a particular region who then go on to work in that region. The region with the largest net export of graduates to elsewhere in the UK, and also the lowest retention, is the East Midlands, exporting 3,525 graduates from 2006/7 known to be employed elsewhere in the UK. London imported over 11,000 graduates from 2006/7 who were educated elsewhere in the UK.
Introduction
The retention of graduates by regions of the UK is a long-standing interest of many institutions and regional economies. A recent report by the Local Government Association1 suggests that the current economic downturn is likely to have a disproportionate effect on the capital, and that regional economies may suffer less. But with graduates and the jobs that they do central to economic development of the UK regions, it is important that we understand how and where they move currently.
The data used in this report is HESA Destinations of Leavers of Higher Education data, looking at where graduates are working six months after graduation. Although graduates are obviously still able to move after the survey period, this data gives us a guide to where young people start their careers and allows us to make rough comparisons of the relative attractiveness of regional economies to educated young people. This article looks particularly at new data from 2006/7.
Inflows and outflows
Previous articles have examined the employment of graduates in the regions. To look at how the regions gained and lost graduates in 2006/7, Table 1 examines all the graduates who were working in a known UK region six months after graduation and compares it with the number who gained their degree from an institution in that region.
| Location of institution of study | Net gain of graduates |
| London | 60.9% |
| East | 40.2% |
| Northern Ireland | 13.0% |
| West Midlands | -1.8% |
| South East | -2.9% |
| Scotland | -6.1% |
| North West | -8.0% |
| South West | -8.5% |
| Wales | -19.7% |
| Yorkshire and the Humber | -23.2% |
| North East | -25.4% |
| East Midlands | -29.2% |
London emerges as the net gainer in 2006/7, providing 18,605 graduates who were employed in a known region of the UK, but with 29,930 graduates going to work in the region. The East of England also had a large net gain of graduates, with 6,375 graduates gaining first degrees and going on to work in a known region of the UK, but 8,940 graduates going to work there.
At the other end of the scale, the East Midlands produced 3,525 more employed graduates for the rest of the UK than went to work in the region – testimony to the employability of the graduates from the region, but meaning that it produces far more graduates than are employed in the East Midlands. Northern Ireland also has a net inflow of graduates because of the number of graduates from the region who studied elsewhere, particularly Scotland.
Retention of graduates
In some cases, there is a clear link between the population of a region and retention of graduates. Northern Ireland is a case in point, producing 4,255 graduates from 2006/7 who were employed in the UK, and employing 4,810. Northern Ireland has an usually high proportion of Loyals, who are domiciled before university, educated and work in the region, and hence showed the highest level of graduate retention for 2006/7. A similar situation exists for Scotland
A comparison of regional retention rates for first degree graduates from 2006/7 who were employed in the UK is seen below.
Figure 1: Retention of employed graduates from 2006-7 by region
The lowest retention rate is in the East Midlands, with fewer than half the graduates produced by the region staying there to work. This has implications for the economy of a region of the UK that has struggled in the last two decades, but may not necessarily be unequivocally bad.
To examine reasons for the differences in retention, we examine the breakdown of subject groups of those who are retained against the subject profile of employed graduates produced by the region as a whole.
North East
The region retained just over 60% of UK-employed graduates from 2006/7. The largest group of employed graduates from the region were nursing graduates; as the region retained over 90% of these graduates, it made an impact on retention figures. The region was good at retaining graduates from medical, social work, business and legal backgrounds, but kept only 24% of its economics graduates, and 38% of history graduates. The region was not particularly good at retaining physical scientists, and with the exception of sociologists and social workers, also poor at retaining graduates in popular social science disciplines.
North West
The region produced more than 100 UK-employed graduates in 49 different subjects in 2006/7, and retained less than half in only four of them – physics (45%), polymers and textiles (49%), technology (49%) and economics (41%). This suggests diverse employment opportunities in the region and helps to explain the good retention rate of the north west. The region retains graduates in a wide range of disciplines, and all of the top 25 most popular in the region in terms of employed graduate numbers had over 50% retention. There were no real areas of weakness in terms of retention, although the region was not very good at retaining the relatively small number of language graduates it produced.
Yorkshire and the Humber
The region produced a large number of employed business and management graduates (1225), but retained only just over half of them (51%), with an effect on the overall retention rate of the region in 2006/7. However, this was the pattern for many popular subjects, with retention rates between 40% and 60% for half of all the disciplines produced in the region. Yorkshire and the Humber retained 29% of employed language graduates from 2006/7, but they represented a small number of the total and in general, the region was a successful graduate exporter.
East Midlands
The East Midlands had the lowest retention rate of all. It has the lowest rate of retention of employed graduates in sciences, maths and IT, engineering, building and architecture, social studies, business and management, mass communication and media subjects, classics, modern languages and art and design, with only 15.6% of employed graduates in modern languages who got their degree in the East Midlands working there 6 months after graduating. This is balanced by the undeniable success the region has in exporting graduates to other parts of the UK, particularly in the sciences, the arts and business and management. More graduates from the East Midlands from 2006/7 were working outside the region than for any other UK region. The region also imports a significant number of graduates from elsewhere, particularly the neighbouring regions of Yorkshire and the Humber, the West Midlands and the East Midlands, so the data raise question about why East Midlands graduates from 2006/7 chose to work elsewhere when there may have been jobs available for them locally.
West Midlands
The region retained more than half of all graduates from its 15 most popular subjects in 2006/7. In the case of business studies, the most popular subject, however, 50% of graduates who got their degree in the West Midlands were retained – a relatively low figure. This was counteracted by a relatively large retention of management graduates – 67%. The region retained fewer than half of its physical scientists and engineers, but was notably successful in keeping architecture and building graduates within the region (79%), and also retained a relatively large proportion of law graduates (65%)
East of England
Much the commonest subject of study for employed graduates who got their degree in the region in 2006/7 was nursing. With a retention rate of 79%, this helped to boost the region’s retention figures. But the region retained fewer than half of employed graduates from 2006/7 in biological sciences, engineering, social sciences (in this field, 22% of economics graduates who were working were doing so in the region), law, business and management, humanities and languages. This region was one of the few that retained more than half of its physical sciences and it must be stressed that the research strength of the region means that it attracts many postgraduate students who are not considered in this report.
London
London’s graduate employment market is different to that of the rest of the country, and that is mirrored by the retention pattern for subjects for 2006/7. London had the highest net gain of graduates – over 11,000 – and also has a high level of retention. However, although the capital retained 73% of nursing graduates, it retained fewer than half of the medicine graduates it produced (47%). This was unusual, however, as with the exception of mechanical engineers (49%) and aerospace engineers (30%), London retained more than half of its employed graduates in all of the 41 other subjects that had more than 100 employed graduates in 2006/7. In particular, the capital kept 81% of all maths and computing graduates, 84% of social scientists, 82% of law graduates and 84% of graduates in business and management it produced.
South East
Retention of graduates in the South East is undoubtedly affected by the proximity of the capital, with retention below 50% in most subject areas except for medicine and biological sciences. Part of this is due to the particular popularity of subjects such as psychology, English, design and sociology, whose graduates were mobile within the UK in 2006/7. All of these subjects had over 600 employed graduates from the region, and the South East retained fewer than half of any of them. The region was particularly good at retaining sport scientists, fine arts graduates and electrical and electronic engineers, and poor at keeping graduates in economics, maths and law.
South West
The pattern of retention in the region was similar to that of Yorkshire, with around, or just under, half of employed graduates in most subject groups being retained by the region. However, unlike Yorkshire, which produced 3,450 more graduates in 2006/7 than were employed in the region, the South West produced fewer than a thousand more than local demand. The region produced an unusually high number of employed media studies graduates, and retained only 39% of them. With the exception of nursing and social work, which are typically well retained by most regions, the South West did not show unusually high retention of any major subjects. The region did show low retention of graduates in economics (21%), mathematics (33%) and marketing (33%). The low retention despite apparent local graduate demand does raise questions as to whether retention can be improved.
Wales
With the exception of physical sciences and modern languages, Wales retained more than half of it’s employed graduates in all major subject groups. Individual subjects showed a different pattern – Wales produced 390 UK-employed psychology graduates in 2006/7, but retained only 49% of them, and kept 40% of employed graduates in the popular discipline of cinematics and photography. But Wales was good at retaining computing graduates (65%), management (69%) and law (71%). This implies the local economy does have more demand for certain graduates than for others that are produced in numbers within Wales. But with Wales producing nearly 20% more graduates than it employed in 2006/7, this will only apply for some subjects.
Scotland
Scotland retains graduates very effectively, and produced only 835 more graduates known to be employed from 2006/7 than it employed internally. This also means that it does not export many graduates to the rest of the UK. Scotland retained more than 70% of employed graduates from 2006/7 in most subjects. All but a handful of subjects (all studied by small numbers of graduates) had retention rates over 50%. Over 90% of employed graduates from Scottish universities from 2006/7 in accountancy, civil engineering, sociology and management stayed in Scotland to work.
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is an even more effective retainer of graduates than Scotland and actually had a small export of graduates (largely to Scotland) in 2006/7. All nursing students who studied Northern Ireland and were known to be employed, were working in Northern Ireland, and the same was true for accountancy and anatomy, physiology and pathology graduates. The issue for Northern Ireland is less in retention and more related to the ability to attract graduates from elsewhere in the UK.
1.From recession to recovery: the local dimension, Local Government Association, November 2008.
http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/publications/publication-display.do?id=1212613
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