Graduate Outcomes 2021/22: Summary Statistics - Notes

Who produced this release?

This bulletin has been produced by Jisc in collaboration with statisticians from the Department for Education, the Office for Students, the Welsh Government, the Scottish Government and the Department for the Economy Northern Ireland. It has been released according to the arrangements approved by the UK Statistics Authority.

HESA merged with Jisc in October 2022. Jisc was designated as a producer of official statistics in August 2023. Official and accredited official statistics which are now published by Jisc will continue to be published under the HESA brand. The data collection activity which delivers the data to support production of official statistics also continues to be undertaken under the HESA brand.

Which graduates and HE providers are included?

This release contains information regarding graduates from providers who are publicly funded or regulated, and submit data to the HESA Student and Student Alternative records. In addition, this release includes data for graduates from HE level courses at further education (FE) colleges in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This release excludes graduates from HE level courses at FE colleges in Scotland and also excludes other alternative providers in the sector. More information on the population of graduates included in the Graduate Outcomes survey is detailed in the coverage of the record. Please be aware that the coverage of providers differs to those used in the HESA student publications.

This publication excludes data about graduates from Ballet West. This HE provider located in Scotland chose to optionally return data to HESA for a number of years until 2018/19. Please note that data for this provider was included in the 2017/18 Graduate Outcomes data releases previously published by HESA.

What changes have there been to the data this year?

Between collection of the 2021/22 Student data and collection of the 2021/22 Graduate Outcomes survey data, five providers have undergone a de-merger: The Place, London Contemporary Dance School (LCDS), Central School of Ballet, National Centre for Circus Arts, Rambert School and Northern School of Contemporary Dance. They are presented within the 2021/22 Graduate Outcomes data release as the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama to reflect the graduates' experience during their course.

Participation measures based on POLAR4 have been removed from the Graduate Outcomes survey from 2021/22 as this metric is no longer updated and maintained by the OfS and there will be no POLAR5 replacement.

Median salary has been calculated to the nearest £1. Prior to the 2021/22 Graduate Outcomes survey, median salary was calculated to the nearest £500.

Are any changes expected for future releases?

Next year's publication, using data from the 2022/23 academic year, will use the Data Futures 056 record as the source of the student data. Please see our Data Futures blog for more information.

We continue to review the state school marker, which is created and maintained by Jisc. More information surrounding this will be published when available.

Has data for earlier years been revised?

This release uses revised data returns (the 'fixed' database) for time series figures. The fixed data return facility provides HE providers with the opportunity to make post-collection amendments to their HESA return. The fixed database remains open for between 6 and 15 months following the closure of the corresponding live data collection and usually becomes available at least 18 months after the original dataset is delivered. Please refer to the definitions below for detail as to which versions have been used to produce this release and the impact of these changes.

Has COVID-19 had any impact on this release?

The 2021/22 data has not been assessed for the impact of COVID-19. In the three insight briefs produced, we found little change in the data which could be firmly attributed to the pandemic rather than normal year-on-year variation. Additionally, with the passage of time, it was starting to become increasingly difficult to separate the impacts of COVID-19 from the impacts of other world events, a trend that seemed likely to continue in future years.

Please see the insight briefings on the 2018/19, 2019/20 and 2020/21 Graduate Outcomes surveys, for the impact of COVID-19 and further detail on the analysis undertaken.

How to use the tables and charts

The tables and charts within this release are interactive. There are options immediately above the figures to filter by data field(s) such as by level of qualification or mode of former study. The figures refresh to display the option(s) chosen, updating the data accordingly. The 'Reset filters' link below each figure will clear all selected options.

In the figures, 0, 1, 2 are rounded to 0. All other numbers are rounded up or down to the nearest multiple of 5 in line with the HESA rounding strategy. Percentages are calculated on unrounded data and are rounded to the nearest whole number. This means percentages may not sum exactly to 100%.

It is a criminal offence under Section 171 of the Data Protection Act 2018 for a person knowingly or recklessly to re-identify information that is de-identified personal data without the consent of the controller responsible for de-identifying the personal data.

CSV files

The CSV files contain additional data for other academic years that are not represented in the interactive tables.

How can I get the data in a spreadsheet?

All the data is presented in interactive tables on the HESA website and will not be published in Excel spreadsheets. Below each table you will find a link to download the table as a *.csv.

If you are planning to open the *.csv files in Excel, you must ensure you import the *.csv data, rather than just opening the file directly. This will ensure the data is presented appropriately without corrupt characters appearing. We have published instructions on how to import *.csv files in earlier versions of Excel. If you are using Excel 2016, you should select 'Data' in the top ribbon and then choose 'From Text/csv'. In the options screen, select '65001: Unicode (UTF-8)' in the 'File Origin' box; click 'Edit' and ensure that all columns are formatted as 'Text'.

How to print this release

This release is designed primarily for on screen users. Each section of the release can be printed by hitting Ctrl+P from within a section.

How are Open University students counted?

Graduates who were registered at one of The Open University's (OU) national centres in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland will contribute to the totals of those countries where statistics are shown by country of HE provider. Please note that all non-UK domiciled OU students, and those who study at postgraduate research level, are registered to the OU administrative centre in England.

Where can I find more detail on the outcomes of graduates?

More detailed information about the outcomes of graduates from higher education, including outcomes by HE provider, can be found in our Graduate Outcomes open data repository.

Definitions

The data presented in this release is based on the 2017/18 - 2021/22 Graduate Outcomes survey and derived by HESA from data collected from all publicly funded HE providers in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, both Approved (fee cap) and Approved HE providers in England, and further education colleges in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Course and student characteristics have been taken from the 2017/18 - 2021/22 HESA Student and Student Alternative records for all graduates other than those who graduated from further education colleges in England and Northern Ireland. Characteristics of these graduates have been supplied by the Office for Students (OfS) and Department for the Economy Northern Ireland DfE(NI), respectively.

Graduate Outcomes data was prepared in May and June 2024 using the following versions of the datasets:

See definitions for more detail on the Graduate Outcomes data fields and concepts used within this release.

See data intelligence for specific notes about this year's Graduate Outcomes survey data.

Jisc cannot accept responsibility for any inferences or conclusions derived from the data by third parties.

Press enquiries should be directed to the Press Office at Jisc, Clockwise, Festival House, Jessop Avenue, Cheltenham, GL50 3SH, +44 (0) 1242 388 513 (option 6), [email protected]. General enquiries about the data contained within this release should be addressed to Luke Perrott, Official Statistics Manager, HESA (at the same address), +44 (0) 1242 388 513 (option 2), [email protected]

More detailed information on graduates, including data by provider, can be found in the Graduate Outcomes open data repository.

• Summary
• Graduate activities and characteristics
• Activities by previous study characteristics
• Graduate salaries and work locations
• Graduate reflections on activities
• Notes