Tax year 2021-22

LEO Graduate outcomes provider level data

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Introduction

LEO Graduate outcomes provider level data: Employment and earnings outcomes of higher education first degree graduates by subject studied and graduate characteristics, with breakdowns by HE provider. 

This release updates previously published figures with the latest available data (2021/22 tax year). These are official statistics. For more information on what this means, please see the ‘Official statistics’ section at the end of this publication. 

The 2021/22 tax year overlapped with the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. During this period some support programmes such as the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) were coming to an end while other programmes aimed at supporting economic recovery such as the Kickstart Scheme had been introduced. The statistics in this release should be understood in this context.

This publication provides information about outcomes for UK domiciled first degree graduates, focusing on outcomes among those adults who graduated from Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) five years after graduation in 2016. Additional information about UK domiciled adults who graduated from all types of Higher Education Provider (that is, HEIs, Further Education Colleges (FECs) and Alternative Providers (APs)) one, three, and five years after graduation is available in the Excel tables that are provided in the ‘Additional supporting files’ section below.

The analysis presented in this publication does not control for differences in the characteristics of graduates who studied a particular subject across different HE Providers. This is a very important consideration when comparing graduate outcomes across providers. A report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies investigated how returns (in terms of earnings) to undergraduate degrees vary by graduates' socio-economic background and ethnicity The returns to undergraduate degrees by socio-economic group and ethnicity | Institute for Fiscal Studies (ifs.org.uk).

We present the provider median and distribution of graduate earnings by subject and/or region in figures 1, 2, 4 and 8. Provider median is the median earnings across graduates who studied at a particular provider. We also present key points and intervals in the distribution of graduate earnings (upper and lower quartiles, and minimum and maximum values). Care should be taken not to confuse provider median graduate earnings with median earnings of all graduates (regardless of provider). The latter type of median earnings are presented in our publication https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/leo-graduate-and-postgraduate-outcomes/2021-22. More information about the definition of provider median is provided in the section below entitled, 'About this release'. 

One of the most detailed breakdowns in this publication is a provider level table which compares employment and earnings outcomes for graduates who studied specific subject areas. You can find this in the ‘Graduate outcomes by provider and subject’ Excel file, within the ‘Additional supporting files’ section below.  

Data on full cycle (home, study and current regions) movement shows graduate movement through the full cycle of study – before entering higher education (home region), during study (study region), and after completing their course (current region). Data for each provider is available in the ‘Full cycle movement data 2021/22’ file under the ‘Additional supporting files’ section below.

This publication does not compare graduate employment outcomes to non-graduate outcomes. The Graduate Labour Market Statistics publication Graduate labour market statistics, Calendar year 2022 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk) compares the earnings of graduates of working age with individuals who are working age but did not participate in higher education. This publication is not comparable with the LEO data, as it is based on survey data from the Labour Force Survey while LEO uses administrative data sources. For lifetime labour market returns to HE, see The impact of undergraduate degrees on lifetime earnings: research report. The Higher Education Statistics Agency (JISC) also publishes employment and earnings outcomes based on data collected in the Graduate Outcomes survey.

Headline facts and figures - 2021-22

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Additional supporting files

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

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About this release

Background 

The LEO dataset links information about students, including: 

  • Personal characteristics such as sex, ethnic group and age;
  • Education, including schools, colleges and higher education provider attended, courses taken, and qualifications achieved;
  • Employment and income;
  • Benefits claimed.

By combining these sources, we can track progress of higher education leavers into the labour market. Further information on the data included in the LEO dataset is provided in the accompanying methodology note, which also contains further information on data quality and match rates. 

Years after graduation (YAG) 

The time periods used in this publication are one, three and five years after graduation, which refer to the first, third and fifth full tax years after graduation. So, for the 2021/22 tax year, we present outcomes for those who graduated in the academic years 2019/20, 2017/18 and 2015/16. Because academic and tax years run between different months, it isn't possible to use exact numbers of years after graduation. We have used outcomes five years after graduation in the sections below but the full range of cohorts is available in the downloadable data. 

We do not include outcomes ten years after graduation because prior attainment data is unavailable for the cohort with outcomes data ten years after graduation. 

Coverage 

This publication includes those who graduated with a first degree qualification from HE providers and FE providers in Great Britain and are UK domiciled. Only data for HE providers is shown in the main text of this publication as they typically have larger cohorts than FE providers. All data is available in the accompanying Excel tables under the ‘Additional supporting files’ section above.   

Employment outcomes for UK domiciled graduates 

The employment outcomes in this publication are grouped into five categories. These are: 

  • Activity not captured - graduates who have been successfully matched to DWP’s Customer Information System but do not have any employment, out-of-work benefits or further study records in the tax year of interest.
  • No sustained destination - graduates who have an employment or out-of-work benefits record in the tax year of interest but were not classified as being in ‘sustained employment’ and do not have a further study record. 
  • Sustained employment, further study or both - graduates with a record of sustained employment and/or further study. 

Of which there are subset groups: 

  • Sustained employment only - graduates who have a record of sustained employment but no record of further study.
  • Sustained employment with or without further study -  graduates with a record of sustained employment, regardless of whether they also have a record of further study or not.
  • Further study with or without sustained employment - graduates with a further study record regardless of whether they have a record of sustained employment or not. This is equivalent to the difference between the ‘sustained employment, further study or both’ and ‘sustained employment only’ categories. 

Provider median

This is defined as the median earnings across the graduates who studied at the provider. This median is obtained by ranking the annualised earnings of all graduates from the provider and taking the value at which half the graduates earning s are higher and half are lower. The median, rather than the mean, is used as the measure of average earnings because it is less affected by the skewed distribution of earnings with relatively small numbers of very high earners. 

Contextual information for providers

The data presented here does not control for differences in the characteristics of graduates, such as ethnicity or socio-economic background. We do, however, provide contextual information about prior attainment and the Participation of Local Areas (POLAR) classification for each provider. This should be taken into account when comparing graduate salaries across providers. 

The type of work/industry of employment and hours worked also influence graduate employment outcomes, and in particular earnings. These factors are not included in this publication.

Participation in higher education is associated with a range of personal and societal benefits that extend beyond earnings. These wider outcomes should also be borne in mind when making comparisons between subjects.

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Employment outcomes across providers and subjects

Figure 1 shows the proportion of graduates with a sustained destination (in sustained employment, further study or both) five years after graduation by subject studied. For each subject, proportions are calculated for each provider, and so the range of values for a subject is the range of proportions across all providers. Languages and area studies and Combined and general studies had the lowest median proportions of graduates in sustained employment, further study or both (81.1% and 82.4%, respectively) while Nursing and midwifery and Medical sciences had the highest median proportions (92.9% and 93.5%, respectively). The amount of variation between providers also differed by subject studied. The greatest difference between providers was for Language and area studies (49.0%, ranging from 47.1% for one provider to 96.1% for another) and the smallest difference was for Medicine and dentistry (13.7%, ranging from 85.3% to 100%).

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Earnings outcomes across providers and subjects

Figure 2 presents the distribution of provider median earnings ?(show glossary term definition) for each subject five years after graduation. Each subject is offered by a particular number of providers, so the number of providers included for each subject differs.  

Figure 2 shows that the range of graduate median earnings across providers was greater for some subjects than others. For example, the range of earnings across providers among graduates in Sports and exercise sciences was relatively small (£13,500, from £21,500 to £35,000). By contrast, the median earnings for providers offering Computing varied much more, with a range of £76,300 (£23,400 to £99,600). 

The level of variation in provider median earnings associated with subject studied is likely to be affected by labour market opportunities. For example, some sectors - like the National Health Service - have standardised salaries, which reduces the variation in earnings across providers. 

Provider median earnings were highest among graduates who had studied Medicine and dentistry. This is consistent with the graduate and postgraduate outcomes publication, which presents median earnings of all graduates, regardless of which provider they graduated from (see https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/leo-graduate-and-postgraduate-outcomes/2021-22). Although the ranking of subjects based on median earnings are not identical in the two publications, graduates from the same 12 subjects have highest median earnings in this publication and the graduate and postgraduate outcomes publication. Note that for some subjects, for example Computing, maximum earnings are very high.

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Median earnings and prior attainment by provider

The median prior attainment of each provider is based on the UCAS points of each graduate’s top three A level grades. We ranked providers by median prior attainment and then assigned each provider to one prior attainment band, with the top 25% of providers placed in band 1, the middle 50% placed in band 2, and the bottom 25% placed in band 3. Note that this approach to creating the prior attainment bands is different to that used in the Widening Participation publication (see the methodology document for full details).

Some providers have not been placed in a band and are not included in Figures 3 and 4, below. These providers include Scottish and Welsh providers (as prior attainment data is from an English data source) as well as any provider for which prior attainment information is based on a small number of students. 

Figure 3 presents distributions of median prior attainment across providers for each subject studied. Subjects are ordered by the proportion of providers with graduates who studied this subject in the highest of the three prior attainment bands.  The number of providers in each band is not included in Figure 3 but is shown in the accompanying table. 

The subject with the highest proportion (96.2%) of providers in prior attainment band 1 was Medicine and dentistry. This probably reflects the high entry requirements set by most providers to study Medicine and dentistry.

Figure 4 shows some different patterns between prior attainment and Provider median earnings five years after graduation for selected subjects. Data for other subjects are available in the ‘Provider main tables 2021/22’ file under the ‘Additional supporting files’ section above. 

For Nursing and midwifery, the median graduate earnings across providers are similar for prior attainment bands 1, 2, and 3, possibly because the career paths of graduates in Nursing and midwifery are similar regardless of the provider. For Education and teaching and Creative arts and design, there is an incremental step-like relationship, whereby graduates from providers in the top prior attainment band earned on average more than those who graduated from providers in the middle band, who in turn earned more than graduates from providers in the bottom band. For Computing, and to a lesser extent Engineering, graduates from providers in the highest prior attainment band earned on average substantially more than those from the majority of providers in the lower attainment bands.  

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Earnings by subject and sex

Figure 5 shows the difference between male and female Provider median earnings (five years after graduation) by subject, ordered by the proportion of providers whose female graduate median earnings in that subject are more than 15% lower than the median earnings for male graduates. Some providers are excluded because low numbers of females and/or males in the provider studied the subjectand the number of providers included for each subject area is presented in the accompanying table. For example, figure 5 (and table 5) show that of the 33 providers included for Medicine and dentistry, 69.7% had female graduate median earnings that were over 15% lower than their male graduate median earnings.   

Excluding Materials and technology (because we have earnings data by sex for only one provider), in almost two-thirds of subjects (21 out of 33), male median earnings exceeded female median earnings by more than5% for at least half of the providers that offered the subject. The subjects with the largest proportions of providers for which male median earnings were more than 5% higher than female median earnings were Health and social care (90%, 18 of 20 providers) and Nursing and midwifery (83.7%, 41 of 49).

For three subjects, there were no providers for which median female earnings were at least 5% greater than median male earnings. These are Medicine and dentistry (33 providers included), Nursing and midwifery (49 providers included), and Health and social care (20 providers included).

Media, journalism and communications and Chemistry had the highest proportions of providers from which female and male median earnings were within 5% of one other (47.5% and 47.1% respectively).

The subjects for which the highest proportions of providers had female median earnings that exceeded male median earnings by more than 5% were Performing arts (46.3%), followed by English studies , and Media, journalism and communications.

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Comparison of outcomes by subject and tax years

In this section, we provide information about how graduate earnings have changed over time for different subjects. We compare Provider median earnings five years after graduation between two cohorts of graduates; those who graduated in 2010 and those who graduated in 2016, with earnings during tax years 2015/16 and 2021/22, respectively. This .  

Earnings outcomes for a certain subject at a particular provider may vary from year to year due to a wide range of factors including changes in the way in which the course is provided, changes in intake, and changes in the graduate labour market. 

Earnings also change with inflation. The rate of inflation according to the Consumer Price Index (CPIH) was 13.1% between the 2015/16 and 2021/22 tax years, and between these years, median earnings increased by at least 13.1% for 72% of provider by subject combinations.

We consider changes in median earnings of “more than 5% decrease”, “within 5%” and “5% to 10% increase” to be decreases in real terms, and consider groupings above this as increases in real terms. For more information on CPIH see Inflation and price indices - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk). 

Figure 6 shows how the median earnings of graduates at different providers changed between the 2015/16 and 2021/22 tax years for each subject, ordered by the proportion of providers whose median earnings were more than 20% higher in 2021/22 than they were in 2015/16. Excluding Celtic studies, Computing has the highest proportion of providers whose median graduate earnings increased by over 20% (76.5%). 

The list of subjects (below) for which there was an increase in median earnings for a high proportion of providers between 2015/16 and 2021/22 is similar to the list produced in the previous  publication, which showed changes between the 2014/15 and 2019/20 tax years (see LEO Graduate outcomes provider level data, Tax year 2020-21 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk). The subjects (excluding Celtic studies) for which median graduate earnings increased by over 10% between the 2015/16 and 2021/22 tax years among at least 90% of providers are listed below: 

  • Medical sciences (97.2% of 36 providers),
  • Materials and technology (94.1% of 17 providers),
  • Sociology, social policy and anthropology (93.3% of 89 providers),
  • Computing (91.8% of 98 providers),
  • Law (91.4% of 93 providers),
  • Allied health (90.9% of 66 providers),
  • Psychology (90.7% of 107 providers),

 

There are no subjects for which median earnings decreased substantially in real terms for the majority of providers. However, for some subjects, median earnings decreased in real terms (less than a 10% observed increase) for at least 30% providers:

  • Architecture, building and planning (38.9% of 54 providers),
  • Engineering (35.8% of 81 providers),
  • Pharmacology, toxicology and pharmacy (34.6% of 26 providers),
  • Media, journalism and communications (33.8% of 83 providers),
  • Medicine and dentistry (31.2% of 32 providers),
  • Education and teaching (30.0% of 70 providers).
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Interaction of region and earnings at provider level

On 18th July 2019 we published regional graduate outcomes, which shows that the regions where graduates live after graduation are associated with the region in which they studied, and that there are regional differences in average earnings. For example, graduates from London providers may be more likely than graduates from providers in the North East to live in London five years after graduation, where average earnings are high relative to other regions in England. 

In order to better understand relationships between studying in a specific provider region and earnings in the region where the graduate lives five years later, we weight the numbers of graduates from each provider region so that the weighted numbers match the regional distribution of all graduates (five years after graduation). For example, if University A has 3% of its graduates living in the North East five years after graduation compared to 12% nationally, then graduates living in the North East from University A would be given a weighting of 4.0 (3% x 4.0 = 12%). More details about this calculation, and the providers included, are in the methodology document for this release. 

Figure 7 shows how the Provider median earnings for providers in each region change when adjusted to account for the regional distribution of their graduates. Regions are ordered by their proportion of providers whose regionally adjusted median was more than 10% higher than their raw median.  

The impact of regional adjustment on median earnings varies a lot between provider regions. More than half the providers in each of Scotland, the North East, the North West, and Yorkshire and The Humber had regionally adjusted earnings that were 5% or more higher than raw earnings, indicating that graduates from these providers typically work in regions with, on average, relatively low salaries. In contrast, half the providers in London had lower earnings after regional adjustment, which indicates that graduates from these providers typically work in regions with average salaries that are relatively high (for example, in London). 

Figure 8 shows adjusted Provider median earnings five years after graduation among graduates from providers in each region. It allows us to compare graduate earnings by provider region net of the impacts of regional differences in earnings. 

After adjustment, providers in Scotland and the North East have the highest median earnings of £34,300 and £33,200, respectively. In contrast, providers in Wales, the North West, and London providers had the lowest adjusted median earnings (£27,200, £27,900, and £28,300, respectively)(. This suggests that prospective students in Scotland and the North East have relatively good access to local providers with good earnings outcomes (after regional adjustment), while those in Wales and the North West have local providers with poorer adjusted earnings outcomes. This similarly applies to prospective students in London, unless, of course, they get into one of the small number of top providers in London for which even adjusted median earnings are very high.

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Full cycle movement (home, study and current regions)

Data on graduate movement throughout the full cycle of study – before attending higher education (home region), during study (study region), and after graduating (current region) are provided in the accompanying Excel tables under the ‘Additional supporting files’ section above. Table 6 of the ‘Provider main tables’file provides information about the home region of graduates and the region they live in after graduation. This is broken down by HE provider and sex. We do not include an additional breakdown by subject because numbers of graduates for many combinations are very low. 

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Find my data and feedback

This section provides guidance on finding data and providing feedback. 

Find my data  

To find information on topics of interest, expand the relevant section. In each section there are tables and charts with a summary of the key points. Some sections include links to pre-prepared summary tables or additional useful documents, like the methodology or Excel tables documents.  

At the top of the release, there is a link ‘Additional supporting files’ which includes: 

  • Excel tables documents with outcomes by provider,
  • underlying data files used in this release,
  • ‘How to read boxplots’ document. 

You can also create your own tables through the table tool or modify the pre-prepared tables which use the same files.  

Feedback 

Your feedback is important to help us improve and develop this publication. Please use the link at the top of this release to provide feedback.  

If you would like to get in touch with any queries related to this release or to the LEO data more generally, you can contact us on the below address.  

EMAIL: HE.LEO@education.gov.uk 

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Official statistics

These are official statistics and have been produced in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics.  

This can be broadly interpreted to mean that the statistics;  

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

The department has a set of statistical policies in line with the Code of Practice for Official statistics. 

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Help and support

Methodology

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

Official statistics

These are Official Statistics and have been produced in line with the Code of Practice for Official 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.

Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR).

OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards. Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.

Contact us

If you have a specific enquiry about LEO Graduate outcomes provider level data statistics and data:

Higher Education Graduate Outcomes Analysis

Email: he.leo@education.gov.uk
Contact name: Cathie Hammond

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