Sex
For graduates from HEIs and APs, this field is collected by HESA and more detail can be found on Student 2020/21 - Sex identifier | HESA (opens in a new tab). We filter our data to only include individuals who are recorded as ‘Male’ or ‘ Female’ to avoid the risk of disclosure for individuals who are recorded as ‘Other’.
For graduates from FECs, the fields is collected in the ILR and more detail can be found on ILR Specification: Field: Sex (fasst.org.uk) (opens in a new tab). For these individuals, ‘Male’ and ‘ Female’ are the only possible entries in the field.
Ethnicity
The ethnicity breakdowns provided use groupings inline with HESA and ONS published data. Detailed ethnicity breakdowns are provided in the publication and breakdowns of broader ethnic groups can be viewed in the downloadable main tables document.
Age
Age breakdowns use the age at the start of the course. This is calculated as their age on the 30th September of the academic year e.g. for individuals starting in the 2012/13 academic year, their age on the 30th September 2012.
Some of the breakdowns in this release only cover young graduates (under 21 at the start of their course). Details on the reason for this can be found in ‘Data quality and coverage - HESA coverage’.
Subject areas
The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) are changing the way they report subjects from the 2019/20 academic year; the current Joint Academic Coding System (JACS) is being replaced by the Higher Education Classification of Subjects (HECoS). HESA have produced the Common Aggregation Hierarchy (CAH) which bridges between the two systems, and to maintain consistency across years were are using level 2 of the CAH to report breakdowns by subject area.
The number of subject categories increases to 35, compared with 23 using the previous JACS groupings. In many cases the CAH categories map exactly to a JACS category (e.g. Medicine and dentistry, Mathematical sciences, Creative arts and design) ; in the remainder of cases, the CAH categories just provide a more detailed split compared with JACS groups (e.g. the JACS group ‘Engineering & Technology’ is now split into ‘Engineering’ and ‘Materials and technology’ separately; similarly for ‘Historical and Philosophical Studies’ split into ‘History and archaeology’ and ‘Philosophy and religious studies’). More information on HECoS and CAH can be found here: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/innovation/hecos (opens in a new tab)
| CAH Code | Subject |
|---|
| CAH01-01 | Medicine and dentistry |
| CAH02-02 | Pharmacology, toxicology and pharmacy |
| CAH02-04 | Nursing and midwifery |
| CAH02-05 | Medical sciences |
| CAH02-06 | Allied health |
| CAH03-01 | Biosciences |
| CAH03-02 | Sport and exercise sciences |
| CAH04-01 | Psychology |
| CAH05-01 | Veterinary sciences |
| CAH06-01 | Agriculture, food and related studies |
| CAH07-01 | Physics and astronomy |
| CAH07-02 | Chemistry |
| CAH07-04 | General, applied and forensic sciences |
| CAH09-01 | Mathematical sciences |
| CAH10-01 | Engineering |
| CAH10-03 | Materials and technology |
| CAH11-01 | Computing |
| CAH13-01 | Architecture, building and planning |
| CAH15-01 | Sociology, social policy and anthropology |
| CAH15-02 | Economics |
| CAH15-03 | Politics |
| CAH15-04 | Health and social care |
| CAH16-01 | Law |
| CAH17-01 | Business and management |
| CAH19-01 | English studies |
| CAH19-02 | Celtic studies |
| CAH19-04 | Languages and area studies |
| CAH20-01 | History and archaeology |
| CAH20-02 | Philosophy and religious studies |
| CAH22-01 | Education and teaching |
| CAH23-01 | Combined and general studies |
| CAH24-01 | Media, journalism and communications |
| CAH25-01 | Creative arts and design |
| CAH25-02 | Performing arts |
| CAH26-01 | Geography, earth and environmental studies |
It is important to note that, even with these additional splits, each CAH subject area can still include a diverse range of subjects, some of which will lead to significantly different employment and earnings outcomes. For example, ‘subjects allied to medicine not otherwise specified’ contains courses ranging from nutrition and dietetics to biomedical sciences.
In this version of the publication, we have provided an additional table that shows the breakdowns by JACS 4-digit subjects (see JACS 3.0: Detailed (four digit) subject codes | HESA) (opens in a new tab). This was originally requested by BEIS Office of Manpower Economics and includes more granular breakdowns for all subjects. The suppression rules mean that not all subject will have employment and earnings outcomes available.
Mode of study
The mode of study breakdown is derived from two HESA fields (XMODE01_3.3.1 | HESA (opens in a new tab) and XQMODE01_3.4.1 | HESA (opens in a new tab)). ‘Full-time’ graduates have XQMODE01 recorded as full-time and XMODE01 recorded as not sandwich, ‘Sandwich’ have XMODE01 recorded as sandwich and ‘Part-time’ have XQMODE01 recorded as part-time.
For graduates from FECs, the mode variable from the ILR is used ILR Specification: Field: Mode of Study (fasst.org.uk) (opens in a new tab).
There are other modes of study which are not included in this analysis as they do not apply or would likely lead to small counts which would be suppressed.
Free School Meals (FSM)
For FSM, we use the FSM6 variable as used in the Pupil Premium calculations. This looks at school census records for the individuals to see if they have ever been eligible for FSM in the last six years from the date of the census.
We use data from the Spring census when the individual was in Year 11. The Spring census is used in finalising Pupil Premium funding meaning it is more likely to be accurate. We use the Year 11 census as it has a better coverage than Sixth Form and FE colleges do not have to return the school census.
FSM6 is used as it ensures we pick up all individuals who have seen some disadvantage during secondary school (e.g., someone could be eligible for FSM for Year 6 to Year 10 but not Year 11, using FSM6 picks this up whereas FSM would not).
In this publication, an individual is counted in the “FSM” category depending on their most recent FSM6 record census value in KS4.
POLAR (Participation Of Local Area)
The participation of local areas (POLAR) classification groups areas across the UK based on the proportion of young people who participate in higher education. It looks at how likely young people are to participate in higher education across the UK and shows how this varies by area. POLAR classifies local areas into five groups (or quintiles) based on the proportion of young people who enter higher education aged 18 or 19 years old.
In this publication, we use POLAR3. POLAR3 uses Census Area Statistics ward as the geographical area. More details can be found at Get the area-based measures data - Office for Students (opens in a new tab)
Prior Attainment
Prior attainment is the attainment of students prior to commencing their higher education course. We have calculated prior attainment based on key stage 5 qualifications recorded in the National Pupil Database (NPD), which contains data about pupils in schools and colleges in England. Due to the coverage of the NPD, we are unable to provide prior attainment breakdowns for our earliest cohorts (graduates in 2003/04 and 2004/05) or for mature students. Note also that coverage for graduates domiciled in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is significantly lower than for those domiciled in England, since only those who took their KS5 qualifications in England are included.
The majority of categories are based on point scores in A-levels. For these categories we have included Applied A levels and Vocational A levels alongside traditional A levels. Prior to the 2009/10 academic year, the available grades from an A level were A, B, C, D, E, N and U, with A being the highest, E being the lowest passing grade and N and U being considered fails. From 2009/10 onwards, an A* grade, higher than an A, was also available. Among our graduate cohorts, only graduates from 2012/13 onwards would typically have had A* available to them. To keep our categories comparable across years, our categorisation does not distinguish between A and A* grades.
We use the following categories, listed in order of preference (i.e., if an individual satisfies the criteria of two or more categories, they are included only in the first of those categories):
- 4 As or more
- 360 points
- 300-359 points
- 240-299 points
- 180-239 points
- Below 180 points
- 1 or 2 A level passes (and no other qualifications other than AS levels)
- BTEC (regardless of grade)
- Other (this includes mixtures of A levels and other qualifications)
For category ’4 As or more’, it is important to note that 3 A levels is usually enough for entry to most universities. Hence many students who might be capable of attaining four A grades would only take 3 A levels. Indeed, some schools only offer 3 A levels to their students.
For categories ’360 points’ to ‘Below 180 points’, we use the conversion between A level grades and points listed in Table E and only consider graduates with at least 3 A level passes. Hence ’360 points’ requires three grades of A or A*, while the threshold for ’300-359 points’ is equivalent to three Bs and the threshold for ’240-299 points’ is equivalent to three Cs.
Note also that graduates with one or two A level grades as well as a BTEC National Diploma would be included in the ‘BTEC’ category. This was chosen as a BTEC is considered a “full” set of qualifications while one or two A levels is usually not enough to be considered for entry to most first degree courses.
Conversion between A level grades and point scores
| A level grade | Point Score |
|---|
| A or A* | 120 |
| B | 100 |
| C | 80 |
| D | 60 |
| E | 40 |
| N/U | Not counted as one of top 3 A levels |
Current Region
The current region geographical location data is based on the latest address that DWP has recorded for each individual on their Customer Information System (CIS). The LEO dataset does not contain the actual address or postcode for each individual, we currently have data on the Government Office Region (GOR), Local Authority District and Lower Layer Super Output Area (LSOA) where the individual lives at the end of each tax year.
The CIS is primarily updated when an individual notifies DWP or HMRC of a change of address or through the individual interacting with a tax or benefit system. Individuals who have not been matched to the CIS will not have geographical information. This does not have an adverse effect on the data analysis as ‘unmatched’ graduates are excluded from employment and earnings outcomes.
For those matched to CIS, address data is available in nearly all cases (over 99.8%), however for those who are not in receipt of benefits or contributing to the tax system then this information could be out of date. Even when contributing to the tax system, employee address is not a mandatory field in the data submitted to HMRC via employers HR systems. It is also possible that in the years soon after leaving university graduates may still use their parents address if they are moving frequently between rented accommodation. More work is needed to try and understand how big an impact this has on the address data held on CIS.
Home Region
A graduate's home region is found by using their permanent or home postcode prior to starting the course as recorded by HESA - Student 2016/17 - Postcode | HESA (opens in a new tab).
Residence (Living at Home or Elsewhere)
Residence information is based on term time accommodation recorded in the HESA student record/the ILR. Note that a student’s residence status may potentially change during their studies; we use their status during their graduating year, this may be different to their residence status in their earlier years. Collection of this variable is mandatory for full-time students and those on sandwich courses; coverage is lower for part-time and other modes of study – see Table below.
Coverage of residence data by Mode of Study
Coverage: Young (under 21 at start of course) UK domiciled male and female first degree graduates from English HEIs and FECs
Cohorts: 2003/04, 2004/05, 2008/09, 2009/10, 2010/11, 2011/12, 2012/13, 2013/14, 2014/15, 2015/16, 2016/17
| Mode of Study | Coverage of Residence data (%) |
|---|
| Full-time | 96.7 |
| Sandwich Degree | >99.9 |
| Part-time | 81.0 |
| Other | 55.2 |
We have presented residence information in three categories: living at parental/guardian home, living elsewhere and not known. The ‘living elsewhere’ category consists of a variety of different living arrangements – see Table below for the breakdown of residence into term time accommodation in 2012/13, and the proportion in each of these finer categories. In this table, the ‘not in residence at institution’ category includes students on an industrial placement or language year abroad, ‘own residence’ includes a student’s permanent residence, which may be either owned or rented by them, and ‘other rented accommodation’ refers to a more temporary arrangement, including renting in a flat share on a yearly basis. Note that the proportion in each category vary slightly each year, as does the categorisation used by HESA.
Breakdown of term time accommodation in 2012/13
Coverage: Young (under 21 at start of course) UK domiciled male and female first degree graduates from English HEIs and FECs - 2012/13 graduating cohort (5YAG)
| Residence | Term time accommodation | Proportion (%) |
|---|
| Living at parental/guardian home | Living at parental/guardian home | 22.2 |
| Living elsewhere | Institution maintained property | 6.6 |
| Private-sector halls | 2.9 |
| Not in attendance at the institution | 0.3 |
| Own residence | 17.8 |
| Other rented accommodation | 35.9 |
| Other | 3.5 |
| Not known | Not known | 8.6 |
Full Cycle Movement
Full cycle graduate movement uses three variables (home region – study/provider region – current region) to indicate the migration trend for a student (e.g., “studied in their home region, but currently living elsewhere” or “left their home region to study and currently living in their study region”).
Due to the way ‘provider region’ is defined it is possible that although studying in a different region to their ‘home region’ some of these graduates were still living in their home region and then commuting to a different region to attend university (e.g. living at home in Sheffield but commuting to a provider in the East Midlands).
The provider region and home region geographical location variables are both from the HESA student record, and the current region geographical location data is from DWP as is explained in more detail in the above ‘current region’ section.
If a graduate has an unknown home or current region, they were filtered out of this analysis, meaning that the cohort numbers are smaller than in other breakdowns. An individual may have an unknown home region if their home postcode is not provided by their HE provider, however this only affects a very small proportion of graduates. Reasons for an individual having an unknown current region are explained in the previous ‘current region’ section. We also filter out mature graduates from this analysis because the home region data is unreliable for mature students. This is because the region they lived in prior to starting their course is less likely to be their ‘true’ home region, as they are more likely to have geographically relocated in the years between school and higher education.
We have presented the full cycle movement breakdowns using five categories in the following format;
| Left home region to study | Stayed in home region to study |
| Currently in home region | Currently in study region | Currently elsewhere | Currently in home/study region | Currently elsewhere |
‘Left home region to study’ means that the graduate attended a HE provider in a region that was not their home region. ‘Stayed in home region’ means that the graduates HE provider was in their home region. These do not define where the graduate lived during their study period (which instead can be seen in the ‘term time residence’ section), because a graduate could move cities for HE but still be within the same region as their home region, or could commute to a different region for HE while still living at home.
The second row of variables represent the movement between their study region and their current region. If they left their home region to study, the options are that they currently live in the pre-study home region, that they currently live in the region in which they attended HE, or they are living in a different region which is neither their home or study region. If the graduate studied in their home region, they can either currently be in the home/study region (meaning that their home region, study region and current region are all the same), or they could have moved elsewhere and currently be in a different region.
Domicile Categories
Domicile categories have been based upon graduates’ domicile prior to the start of their course, as recorded in the HESA student record for graduates from HEIs and as recorded in the ILR for graduates from FECs. Graduates have been categorised into three top-level categories – UK, EU and Non-EU. Due to data quality issues with the domicile variable on the ILR in the 2003/04 and 2004/05 academic years, we have not included non-UK domiciled graduates from FECs in the tables for these years.
UK domiciled refers to graduates domiciled in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland prior to the start of their course. Tables 1 to 14 and 20 to 32 refer only to UK domiciled graduates.
EU domiciled refers to graduates domiciled in the EU other than in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. As such, graduates domiciled in Gibraltar have been classed as EU domiciled. Over the period covered by this publication, the membership of the EU has expanded and hence different graduating cohorts consist of different sets of countries. Graduates have been classed as EU domiciled if their recorded country of domicile was a member of the EU at the start of their year of graduation. Table below details for which cohort(s) each country has been designated as part of the EU domiciled category. Countries listed include all of their European Union territories; for instance, Finland includes the territory of the Åland islands.
Countries and territories included in the European Union category by graduating cohort
| Country/Territory | Graduating cohorts in which domicile is counted as EU domiciled |
|---|
Austria Belgium Denmark Finland France Germany Gibraltar Greece Ireland Italy Luxembourg Netherlands Portugal Spain Sweden | All graduating cohorts (2003/04, 2004/05, 2008/09, 2009/10, 2010/11, 2011/12, 2012/13, 2013/14, 2014/15, 2015/16, 2016/17) |
Cyprus Czech Republic Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Malta Poland Slovakia Slovenia | 2004/05, 2008/09, 2009/10, 2010/11, 2011/12, 2012/13, 2013/14, 2014/15, 2015/16, 2016/17 |
Bulgaria Romania | 2008/09, 2009/10, 2010/11, 2011/12, 2012/13, 2013/14, 2014/15, 2015/16, 2016/17 |
| Croatia | 2013/14, 2014/15, 2015/16, 2016/17 |
Overseas domiciled refers to graduates domiciled in countries/territories not belonging to the European Union. The Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man are not part of the UK or of the European Union and thus they have been included this category.
Table 19 in the accompanying tables gives employment and earnings outcomes for the 20 largest countries of domicile within our data. We have followed methodology used by HESA in defining country of domicile, for instance aggregating together the various territories of France in the France total but keeping China and Hong Kong separate.
Note that country of domicile is not the same as nationality (as recorded on the HESA student record). For instance, in 2012/13, 91% of UK domiciled graduates were UK nationals, while 7% of EU domiciled graduates and about 4% of overseas domiciled graduates were UK nationals.
Industry data
The industry groups provided use the ONS Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes (opens in a new tab) agreed in 2007 (SIC2007). SIC codes provide information on the type of economic activity the graduates’ employer is engaged in, not the occupation of the graduate. This has been linked to LEO using the employer enterprise reference from the IDBR.
The IDBR covers over 2.6 million businesses in all sectors of the UK economy; however it does not include very small businesses. To be on the IDBR businesses must be registered either for VAT or PAYE. The Business Population Estimates publication provides figures for the number of UK businesses, 5.9 million, including the small businesses excluded from the IDBR. The IDBR covers approximately 44% of the total UK business population. The IDBR data used in this dashboard 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.
Graduates who do not have a PAYE record (e.g. self-employed) cannot be linked and will therefore be classified as ‘unknown’. A graduate’s SIC code is the industry in which they earnt the most in the tax year, and in the case where there were two industries in which the graduate earnt an equal amount, we have classified these as ‘unknown’ since one cannot be chosen. The majority of the analysis uses the 21 industry sections, however in the dashboard, the industry by subject table is expandable to the 3-digit-code level (see this ONS interactive SIC hierarchy (opens in a new tab)).