Tax year 2018-19

Career pathways: post-16 qualifications held by employees

This is the latest data

• Published: 25 May 2022
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The longitudinal education outcomes (LEO) study now includes information on the industry sector of employment for PAYE employees. Using LEO, these statistics link the industry sector of young employees  with the education achievements that helped guide them there.

The career pathways publication aims to use this development to:

• Explore how LEO can help us to understand the education pathways of employees in different industry sectors. 
• Demonstrate how LEO data could be used to develop a careers information tool via an interactive dashboard.

The data and dashboard have been produced to support the aims of the Unit for Future Skills. You can access the dashboard at:

Unit for Future Skills - Career Pathways Dashboard

The interactive dashboard is a first attempt to present LEO data as a tool to aid careers advice. It is designed to showcase the potential of LEO data rather than function as a service for users.

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Headline facts and figures - 2018-19

Explore data and files used in this release

• View or create your own tables

  View tables that we have built for you, or create your own tables from open data using our table tool

• Data catalogue

  Browse and download open data files from this release in our data catalogue

• Data guidance

  Learn more about the data files used in this release using our online guidance

• Download all data (ZIP)

  Download all data available in this release as a compressed ZIP file

Additional supporting files

All supporting files from this release are listed for individual download below:

• Jacs to SSA subject lookup (csv, 11 Kb)

  This file includes the mapping of JACS codes to SSA tier 1 subject codes used in this statistics release.

• Short qualification title lookup (csv, 228 Kb)

  This file includes a mapping of short qualification titles to long form qualification titles. The short qualification titles are used in the qualification pathways analysis in the career pathways dashboard. This mapping translates the short titles into the form used elsewhere in this statistics release.

About these statistics

The statistics in this publication are focused on employees, the industry sectors they work in and their education achievements. They help us to understand:

• The distribution of employees aged 25-30 across industry sectors and regions in England.
• The education levels and qualification choices of employees across industry sectors.
• The earnings of employees and how these vary by industry sector, region, education level and qualification choices. 
• The qualification pathways followed by employees of different industry sectors.

The statistics in this publication should not be used to show:

• The employment and earnings outcomes students can expect after completing further education and higher education study. These statistics are covered in the outcome based success measures and graduate outcome publications.
• The destinations of students after completing post-16 education in school or college. This is covered by the 16-18 destination statistics and further education outcome based success measures.
• Total employment across industry sectors. This is covered by the Business Register and Employment Survey (BRES).

Using the career pathways publication

The value in these statistics is the detail and ability to drill down into the specifics of region, sector and types of education of interest.  We have made the following choices about how best to communicate findings:

• An interactive dashboard, which is the main focus of this release. The dashboard allows users to make the data relevant to a region, a chosen industry and qualifications of interest.
• This statistical publication, which provides context to the data in the dashboard and compares the national trends in education levels, earnings and subject choices for each industry sector.
• Industry case studies, to provide examples of the analysis possible using the dashboard and underlying data. These sections describe education and qualification achievements for two selected industries: construction and health and social work.
• Raw data files, which include all of the information presented across the release and allow for the construction of extra tables via the table tool.

Data and coverage

This publication uses data from the LEO study, which looks at how learners move through education and into the labour market by bringing together:

• Schools, further and higher education information from the Department for Education (DfE).
• Employment and earnings information from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).
• Industry sector information from the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR).

The IDBR data used in this release is from datasets owned by the Office of National Statistics (ONS). The ONS does not accept responsibility for any inferences or conclusions derived from the IDBR data by third parties.

The coverage of this report is restricted to employees in England born between September 1988 and August 1993 (employees who turn age 25-30 in the 2018-19 tax year). Employee education achievement is measured up to the start of the 2018-19 tax year.  

In the 2018-19 tax year, a cohort of 2 million employees aged 25-30 were in scope for the analysis included in this publication.

For more information about the coverage of employees, qualifications and the cohort selection process please see the accompanying methodology note.

Rounding and suppression

For presentational reasons, employee volumes are rounded to the nearest 10 and earnings are rounded to the nearest 100. We apply suppression to small numbers in this publication. Full details on rounding and suppression are available in the methodology section. 

Career pathways interactive dashboard

The interactive dashboard published alongside these statistics is the main focus of this release.

For each industry sector and region of England, the dashboard includes interactive data about employees on:

• Education levels.
• Earnings.
• Subject choices.
• Highest qualifications.
• Sub-sector of employment.

For each industry sector, the dashboard shows what qualifications are held by employees and how much they earn.

It also includes an interactive visualisation of common qualification pathways followed by top earning employees of each industry sector. These pathways are modelled using the historic qualification achievements of employees, and the visualisation is designed to show potential qualification pathways that could lead to well well paid employment in a chosen sector. 

The following sections of this release aim to provide context to figures in the dashboard, and add some examples of the types of analysis the data make possible.

Employee numbers by industry sector

The distribution of employees by industry sector

Almost half of employees who turned age 25-30 in the 2018-19 tax year worked in the four largest industry sectors:

• 16.8% in wholesale and retail trade.
• 13.0% in health and social work.
• 9.7% in education.
• 9.6% in professional services

Agriculture, electricity and gas, mining and quarrying, and water and sewage had the smallest number of employees, each with less than 1% of the total.   

Levels of education across sectors

In 2018-19, the construction and agriculture sectors had the highest share of employees educated to level 2 or level 3 as their highest qualification. Media and education had the highest share of employees educated to level 4 and above.

Compared with employees qualified to level 4 and above, employees at level 3 and below were:

• More likely to work in wholesale and retail, support services, accommodation and food and construction.
• Less likely to work in professional services,  IT, media and education.

Earnings across sectors

Employees in the mining and quarrying and electricity and gas sectors had the highest median annual earnings in 2018-19. These sectors also employed the smallest percentage of the cohort. 

After mining and quarrying and electricity and gas, employees working in the IT, media and professional services industry sectors had the highest average earnings. Employees in these industry sectors also had some of the highest shares of employees qualified to level 4 and above. 

Construction: sub-sectors

The following sections include a case study of employees in the construction sector. This is provided an example of the information included in the interactive dashboard, and the analysis possible using the underlying data published here.

Construction sub-sectors

In 2018-19, 4.3% of employees worked in the construction sector with median annual earnings of £27,900. 

Construction employees were distributed across the following industry sub-sectors:

• 30.7% worked in the electrical, plumbing and installation sub-sector. 
• 25.3% worked in construction of buildings sub-sector.
• 17.3% worked in civil engineering sub-sector. 
• 13.0% worked in building completion and finishing.
• 1.9% worked in demolition and site preparation.
• 11.8% were employed across other construction activities.

Education levels and subjects

Construction of buildings and civil engineering employees were educated to a higher level than other construction sub-sectors: 36.3% and 27.8% were qualified to Level 4 and above respectively. Employees in these sub-sectors also had the highest average earnings.

Just under half of construction employees held a highest qualification in the construction and planning or engineering and manufacturing technologies sector subject areas. A further 9% of employees had a highest qualification in the business, administration, finance and law sector subject area.

Construction: top qualifications

Qualification choices of construction employees

The most popular highest qualifications held by construction employees were: 

• Electrotechnical apprenticeship (level 3), held by 5.5% of employees who on average earned £34,300. 
• First degree in building, held by 3.2% of employees who on average earned £45,100. 
• Construction skills apprenticeship (level 2), held by 3.0% of employees, who on average earned £28,400. 

Of highest qualifications held by at least 100 employees:  

• The first degree in planning (urban, rural and regional) was associated with the highest earnings (£48,800). 
• Followed by the first degree in building (£45,100).  
• Followed by engineering construction apprenticeship (£42,600). 

Health and social work: sub-sectors

The following sections include a detailed case study of employees in the health and social work sector. This is intended as an example of the information included in the interactive dashboard, and the analysis possible using the underlying data published here.

Health and social work sub-sectors

In 2018-19, 13.0% of employees worked in the health and social work sector with a median annual earnings were £18,800. 

Health and social work employees were distributed across the following sub-sectors:

• 39.7% worked in the hospital activities sub-sector. 
• 24.3% worked in social work. 
• 20.1% worked in residential care.
• 6.7% worked in medical and dental practice. 
• 9.1% worked in other human health activities.

Education levels and subjects

Hospital activities employees were on average educated to a higher level than other health and social work sub-sectors: 67.6% were qualified to level 4 or higher compared with the average of 46.0% across the sector. Hospital activities employees also had the highest average earnings - particularly those qualified to level 6 and level 7+, who had average earnings of £28,200 and £28,400 respectively.

More than half of employees in the health and social work sector had a highest qualification in the health, public services and care sector subject area.

Health and social work: top qualifications

The most popular highest qualifications held by health and social work employees were: 

• First degree in nursing, held by 7.6% of employees who on average earned £27,500.
• First degree in clinical medicine, held by4.3% of employees who on average earned £44,500.
• Health and social care apprenticeship (level 3), held by 3.6% of employees, who on average earn £16,600.

Of highest qualifications held by at least 100 employees:  

• First degree in clinical medicine was associated with the highest earnings (£44,500).
• Followed by first degree in pre-clinical medicine (£44,300).  
• Followed by first degree in clinical dentistry (£36,600). 

Sector focus: table tool

The ‘Explore data and files’ section of this publication contains the underlying files that underpin this release and allows users to interrogate and analyse the data for themselves. Using these tools, it is possible to extract and analyse data for any sector or sub-sector group across all regions included in the underlying files.

The featured tables list includes a number of examples for users who want to explore the data in this way. Example tables include those needed to recreate the detailed sections on construction and health and social work.

Help and support

Methodology

Find out how and why we collect, process and publish these statistics.

• Career pathways: post-16 qualifications held by employees

Ad hoc official statistics

Ad hoc official statistics are one off publications that have been produced as far as possible in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics.

This can be broadly interpreted to mean that these statistics are:

• managed impartially and objectively in the public interest
• meet identified user needs
• produced according to sound methods
• well explained and readily accessible

Find out more about the standards we follow to produce these statistics through our Standards for official statistics published by DfE guidance.

Contact us

If you have a specific enquiry about Career pathways: post-16 qualifications held by employees statistics and data:

Unit for Future Skills

Email: ufs.contact@education.gov.uk
Contact name: Jay Khamis

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