21 August 2015 
Matt Sisson, Projects and Membership Manager
In an article in last week’s digest, we covered a story about a recent report by CIPD that found that the majority of graduates are now working in non-graduate jobs. According to the institute, 58.8% of graduates are in roles that don’t require a degree. It also highlighted how this is a particular problem for the UK, with the high level here exceeded only by Greece and Estonia.
HEFCE has since responded to the report, and acknowledges that “Measuring the extent to which graduates are fully using their skills and knowledge is, as the CIPD analysis suggests, a complex issue”. However it points out that data from the HESA Destination of Leavers in Higher Education (DLHE) survey show that “graduates find employment which suits their skills”. 80% of graduates (296,000 for 13/14 year) completed the DLHE survey, and “of those students whose main activity was employment, 70% were in professional or managerial occupations”, with 65% saying that their degree was either an essential or advantageous requirement for the job they are currently performing. The full report of the DLHE survey can be found on the HESA website. Meanwhile, there's another accompanying blog post on the HEFCE website, which goes into more detail on the evidence behind the arguments. An interesting article in the Guardian also tackles the subject.
