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YOU ARE IN » Home page > News and information main menu > Graduate Market Trends > Postgraduate trends in the UK (Summer 08)

Postgraduate trends in the UK (Summer 08)

• Summary
• Introduction
• Numbers are rising
• China and India growing in importance
• Qualification aims
• More minority ethnic students
• A younger postgraduate population
• Prior postgraduate experience
• Subject choices
• Institutional type
• Postgraduate outcomes
• Masters outcomes
• Doctoral outcomes

Summary

The UK postgraduate population has grown by over a fifth between 2000/01 and 2005/06, and much of this growth was driven by the increase in non-EU students. In this article, Pearl Mok and Charlie Ball from the Higher Education Careers Services Unit (HECSU) present some of the key findings of a study on recent trends in postgraduate study and destinations.

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Introduction

The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) recently commissioned the Higher Education Careers Services Unit (HECSU) to undertake a project mapping postgraduate study since the 2000/01 academic year. There are three parts to the study:

• analysis of postgraduate participation in UK higher education institutions (HEI) since 2000/01;
• postgraduate funding and fees;
• postgraduate destinations.

In this article, we report on some of the key trends in participation in postgraduate study and destinations, drawing on data from the Student Records and the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) survey, published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency.

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Numbers are rising

Between 2000/01 and 2005/06, the number of postgraduates studying at HEIs in the UK rose by 21.5% from 448,695 in 2000/01 to 545,370 in 2005/06 (see footnote 1). Within this period, the largest percentage increase was in the number of postgraduates domiciled outside the EU, which rose by 71.4%, compared with 10.8% for those domiciled in the UK and 21.6% for those from other EU countries. By 2005/06, just under a quarter (22.8%) of the postgraduate population came from non-EU countries, compared with one in six (16.2%) in 2000/01. Overall, overseas students accounted for just under one in three (31.5%) of the total postgraduate student population in the UK in 2005/06, up from one in four (24.8%) in 2000/01 (see Table 1).

Although the size of the postgraduate population is less than a third of that of undergraduate, in terms of percentage growth, the postgraduate population has risen more than the latter during this time, attributed to the much higher percentage growth in non-UK domiciled postgraduate students.

Non-UK domiciled students also accounted for a much higher proportion of the postgraduate population than of the undergraduate population: just under one in three (31.5%) postgraduates were non-UK domiciled compared with around one in eleven (8.9%) for undergraduates. In fact, although the total size of the postgraduate population is much smaller than that of the undergraduate population, there is a higher number of non-EU postgraduate than undergraduate students in the UK.

Females accounted for just over half (53.4%) of the postgraduate student population in 2005/06, slightly lower than that for undergraduates (58.5%). Between 2000/01 and 2005/06, the number of UK domiciled female postgraduates rose by 18.3% compared with only 2.2% for males.

Taking into account only those who were either studying full- or part-time, ie excluding those who were on a sandwich course, writing up or on sabbatical, in 2005/06, full-time students accounted for just under half (47.5%) of the postgraduate population in the UK, up from 42.2% in 2000/01. Overall, the number of full-time postgraduates went up by 36.4% between 2000/01 and 2005/06, compared with 10.1% for part-time postgraduates. The rise in the number of non-EU students studying full-time was particularly notable, which nearly doubled during this period.

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China and India growing in importance

In 2000/01 and 2001/02, Greece had the highest numbers of overseas postgraduate students studying in the UK, but its top position has since been superseded by the People’s Republic of China. In 2000/01, students from China accounted for 6.2% of all overseas postgraduate students in the UK and this rose to 16% by 2005/06. The number of overseas students from India has also grown rapidly during this period. In 2005/06, there were over four times more postgraduate students from India than in 2000/01 and it now has the second largest number of postgraduate students in the UK after China.

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Qualification aims

Table 2 shows the percentage distribution of postgraduates by qualification aim in 2005/06.

Masters degree not mainly by research accounted for the highest numbers of postgraduate students amongst all qualifications, and in 2005/06, it accounted for half (50.8%) of the UK postgraduate student population, up from 44.2% in 2000/01. Much of this growth was driven by the increase in non-EU students, which more than doubled during this period. Overall, 90% of postgraduate study in the UK in 2005/06 was represented by four qualifications: masters degree not mainly by research (50.8% of all qualifications), doctorate degree mainly by research (16.8%), postgraduate diploma or certificate (not PGCE) (15.3%), and PGCE (7%).

Table 3 shows the breakdown by domicile of these four qualification aims in 2005/06. Two in five (40%) masters degree not mainly by research and research doctorate students were from outside the UK, compared with one in ten (or fewer) postgraduate diploma/certificate or PGCE students.

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More minority ethnic students

Table 4 shows the ethnicity breakdown of UK-domiciled postgraduates in 2005/06. Although the number of White students increased by 19.8% between 2000/01 and 2005/06, minority ethnic groups saw even larger percentage rises of 51.4%. The only ethnic group amongst UK domiciled postgraduates with declining numbers was other black background.

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A younger postgraduate population

Table 5 compares the mean and median age of postgraduates by domicile in 2000/01 and 2005/06. Between 2000/01 and 2005/06, there was a general shift towards a younger postgraduate population, and this was mainly attributed to a younger and larger non-EU student population.

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Prior postgraduate experience

Amongst UK domiciled postgraduate students, around three in five held a first degree as their highest qualification on entry and one in five already possessed a postgraduate qualification (excluding PGCE). Between 2000/01 and 2005/06, the number of UK students who possessed a postgraduate qualification (excluding PGCE) as their highest entry qualification rose by 44%, whilst those with a first degree was up by 10.5%.

Figures for non-UK students reveal that the UK was attracting more other EU postgraduates directly from overseas in 2005/06 than in 2000/01, whilst the number of graduates who stayed on after their first degree fell during this period. For non-EU postgraduates, the numbers coming directly from overseas and those staying on after a first degree both rose during this period, although students from the former category had risen more rapidly.

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Subject choices

The most popular subject area for postgraduate study was business and administrative studies, which accounted for just under one in five (19%) postgraduates in 2005/06, followed by education, which represented just under one in six (15.9%) postgraduate students. Between 2002/03 and 2005/06 (see footnote 2), education saw the highest increase in numbers – up by 14,225 students. This was followed by subjects allied to medicine, which went up by over 12,000 students.

For UK domiciled postgraduates, education was the most popular subject area, followed by business and administrative studies and subjects allied to medicine. Amongst UK postgraduates, the numbers studying mathematical and computer sciences or engineering and technologies fell by 10.6% and 2.9% respectively between 2002/02 and 2005/06. On the contrary, the numbers of non-EU students on these courses rose by 22% and 29% respectively during this time.

Much of the increase in postgraduates undertaking a masters degree not mainly by research was attributed to the rise in numbers in business and administrative subjects, as well as education, social studies and subjects allied to medicine courses. For Doctorate research degrees, the highest growth in numbers between 2002/03 and 2005/06 were in mathematical and computer sciences and social studies.

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Institutional type

Table 6 shows the distribution of postgraduates by type of institution. Between 2000/01 and 2005/06, there was an 18% increase in the number of postgraduate students in both Russell Group and pre-92 universities, whilst postgraduate enrolments at the ‘others’ institutions went up by almost 30%. Much of the increase in non-EU postgraduates during the period of study occurred in ‘others’ institutions, which saw numbers double during this period.

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Postgraduate outcomes

The analysis used the DLHE survey data which looks at student outcomes six months after graduation, and the HESA Student Record, which provides much of the information on the characteristics of the student population, such as age, gender and ethnicity.

However, two issues must first be borne in mind. The first is that DLHE data does not look at overseas students from outside the European Union, and although it collects data for those from inside the EU, the participation rate for these students is very poor. As a result, the decision was taken to examine UK-domiciled students only.

The second issue surrounds the change from the old First Destination Survey to the current DLHE in 2002/03. The two surveys had significant differences in classifications and sampling, and as a result are not sufficiently comparable to make it worthwhile to examine any trends other than the very broadest across that time period. Therefore, we examined 2002/03 to 2005/06, a period of four academic years.

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Masters outcomes

Overall data

The number of graduates from Masters degrees went up by 8.1% between 2002/03 and 2005/06. Half of this increase was between 2004/05 and 2005/06 (see Table 7).

There was not a great deal of change in the overall outcomes for Masters graduates between 2002/03 and 2005/06. The labour market was reasonably stable, with employment prospects taking a modest downturn in 2004, attributable to issues within the IT industry.

In order to make analysis simpler, we examined two main measures of graduate outcome – the proportion of graduates entering the workplace, and the unemployment rate for Masters graduates.

Graduates entering the workplace

The proportion of Masters graduates entering the workplace did not change significantly between 2002/03 and 2005/06 (see Table 8). A minor downturn was observed in 2003/04, but overall proportions changed by just 1 percentage point. The labour market as a whole seemed stable and healthy, with over four in five Masters graduates working six months after graduating, the large majority full time (see Table 9).

Unemployment

There was no major change in unemployment. 2003/04 saw a peak, when 4.8% of Masters graduates were out of work six months after graduating – 1 in 21 (see Table 10). By 2005/06, that had dropped to 3.5%, or 1 in 29. Overall graduate unemployment at first degree level also fell over the same time period. Recovery in the IT sector, and high levels of recruitment in the business and finance sectors took place over this period and may have led to reduced unemployment.

Types of work of Masters graduates

This data examines all those UK-domiciled graduates who were working in the UK six months after graduation in any capacity – full time, part time, unpaid or combining work and study.

For this analysis, we grouped the Standard Occupational Classifications (SOC) codes into the groups used in HECSU’s What Do Graduates Do? publication to provide a standard set of occupational groups for comparison.

The most noteworthy findings were that management, although the most important employment outcome for Masters, seems to have declined across the time period under study, with the ‘other professionals’ gaining ground (see Table 11).

The most important ‘other professions’ for Masters graduates, in terms of numbers were, in order:

• researchers
• town planners
• conservation professionals
• library and archive professionals
• surveyors
• industrial and vocational trainers
• clergy

Using the definitions of graduate employment developed by Elias and Purcell in the Seven Years On project [1], around 12.5% of Masters graduates from 2006 were working in jobs below first degree graduate level six months after graduating (see Table 12). No classification that would allow distinction between jobs requiring a Masters qualification and those that do not has been developed. It is unlikely that a classification of this type would be meaningful as there is not a very well-defined employment market in the UK specifically for Masters degrees, as there is for first degrees or doctorates.

There were clear differences in overall outcomes for certain groups of Masters graduates. In particular, part-time, mature and white graduates seem to do a great deal better than graduates in other groups. This suggests that there are factors at play in the employment market for Masters graduates that work to the advantage of these groups, and that social capital issues that have been identified by other research may be very important.

Of these factors, mode of study showed the greatest variation. As with other levels of qualification, part-time Masters graduates had a better chance of being employed and a much lower chance of being unemployed, than full-time graduates (see Tables 13 and 14). But, because nearly half of UK-domiciled graduate respondents had studied their Masters degree part time, this has a profound effect on outcomes. Four of the top five most popular subjects of Masters study are studied by a significant majority of part-time students – psychology is the exception.

Full time graduates were also up to three times more likely than their part-time peers to be unemployed six months after graduating. As an illustration, the unemployment rate for part- time students of Business Studies at Masters level six months after graduation was 1.9% for 2005/06 graduates. For full-time graduates of Business Studies at Masters level, the equivalent rate was 9.2%.

Types of work by mode of study

Examining the graduate job categories, part-time graduates were much more likely to have entered niche graduate occupations – in this case, nursing is one of the key occupations entered by part-time graduates – and much less likely to have entered a non-graduate occupation (see Table 15). Low-level office work was much the commonest non-graduate occupation for both full-time and part-time graduates.

As with the pure outcome data, the types of work outcomes for part-time Masters graduates do appear to be much better than those for full-time graduates. This may mask issues with the value of Masters qualifications to UK employers, and it is clear that future analyses of Masters outcomes must treat part-time and full-time cohorts as different and to examine them separately.

It appears that many of those positions for which a Masters may be a requirement or an advantage, and which might be expected to be advertised, are effectively inaccessible to full-time Masters graduates as they are being taken by internal candidates whose training has been funded by employers. The converse is that there may be more of a market for universities prepared to be flexible with regards to an employer need for a more skilled senior workforce.

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Doctoral outcomes

The What Do PhDs Do? series from the UK Grad programme (now Vitae) examined outcomes between 2002/03 and 2004/05. This research did not repeat that work and focussed in the outcomes from 2005/06. Doctoral outcomes did not deviate significantly between 2002/03 and 2005/06, so 2005/6 outcomes were taken as representative of a typical year. Employment rates have changed by only 2.3 percentage points in four years, and unemployment rates by only 0.5 percentage points.

In actual fact, 2005/06 was quite a favourable year for graduate outcomes, but not excessively so.

In 2005/06, 7,430 doctorates were awarded to UK-domiciled graduates in the UK. Graduate numbers in the four years of the DLHE are shown in Table 16.

5,035 UK domiciled graduates from 2005/06 replied to the DLHE survey at a response rate of 67.8%, with employment rates remaining high and deviating little. The slightly lower level of employment in 2005/06 did not correspond to an increase in unemployment, as Tables 17 and 18 show.

2005/06 outcomes show a typical year, with the large majority of PhD graduates going into employment of one kind or another. Work and further study is a popular option for doctoral graduates, particularly for graduates in arts and humanities.

The popular view that the doctorate is primarily a qualification for academia is incorrect. In 2005/06, less than half of working doctoral graduates were known to be in a job in education or academic research, although the SOC system used to code types of employment weakens when considering the commonest work options for doctoral graduates. Many graduates in science describe themselves merely as ‘scientific researchers’, and one of the largest single occupations for PhD graduates is largely made up of graduates described merely as ‘researchers’ and who cannot be placed in a more defined occupation. This gives an unbalanced view of the employment of doctoral graduates and is a weakness in occupational coding that is currently being explored.

Although doctoral graduates can go into a very wide range of jobs, there was a narrower range of occupations with a significant number (or proportion) of 2005/06 doctoral graduates.

As Table 19 shows, relatively few doctoral graduates were in roles that did not require a first degree six months after completing their doctorate – but it would be potentially valuable to establish a system to determine if their higher level skills are being used effectively in their jobs.

Unlike Masters degrees, there is not a predominant factor, such as mode of study, that heavily affected PhD outcomes. There is variation by gender, type of university, domicile and age (ethnicity could not be examined effectively as the sample size for all ethnicities other than white was small), but no stark differences. Outcomes by type of institution bear some further examination as the outcomes data suggests that there does not seem to be a disadvantage attached to doctoral study at new universities. Post-92 institution doctoral graduates were least likely on the whole to be in non-graduate occupations six months after completing their qualification, and enjoyed the highest median salaries. Russell Group salaries seem to be lower because of the proportion of fixed-term postdoctoral research undertaken by graduates from these institutions.

Footnotes

1. These numbers include all those in full- and part-time study, on a sandwich course, writing up or on sabbatical.

2. From 2002/03, the JACS subject classification system was introduced, replacing the previous HESACODE. As a result of the changes, the discussions on subjects of study only focus on changes between 2002/03 and 2005/06.

References

1. SOC (HE): A classification of occupations for studying the graduate labour market, Peter Elias and Kate Purcell, March 2004. http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/ier/research/completed/7yrs2/rp6.pdf

Content last updated: July 08