Graduate Outcomes

An update on Graduate Outcomes from Professor John Barrow, Dean for Employability & Entrepreneurship

As the University enters its 5^th year of Graduate Outcomes (GO) surveying, I thought it would be a good time to provide a few updates on GO, and some further information on Employability and Entrepreneurship for the University community. We also have some new tools available for staff to help them engage with the employability data that is available to us.

For those not familiar with the survey, GO is the biggest UK annual social survey and captures the perspectives and status of recent graduates 15 months after they leave the University. The survey aims to help current and future students gain an insight into career destinations and the results can help inform University strategy to improve the employability prospects of our students. Having replaced the earlier Destination of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) survey, GO has just entered its 5^th year of surveying, so will now be surveying students who completed their studies in 2020/21. The 4^th year of surveying ended on the 30^th November 2022 and the results will be available in summer 2023, with survey results for the 2019/20 cohort having been published in the summer of 2022.

As the Co-Chair of the Employability and Entrepreneurship Committee alongside Tracey Innes (Head of the Careers and Employability Service), it is our aim to develop and drive employability and entrepreneurship strategy across the University to meet institutional targets such as our Aberdeen 2040 commitment to equip our graduates for global employment through our curriculum and teaching methods (Commitment 12). The data from GO is vital to help inform our decision making that supports these goals.

Currently, the University is performing as follows against Commitment 12 “We will equip our graduates for global employment through our curriculum and teaching methods”;

To enhance the opportunity for academic Schools to engage with this strategic level data, I am pleased to introduce the newly appointed Employability and Skills Champions. These Champions will act as colleagues within Schools who will support our strategic aims, but they will also act as a network of people focussed on understanding the data we have in greater detail and within the context of the wide variety of disciplines that we provide for our students, so please use them to enhance employability for students within your discipline. The list of Champions is shown below.

• School of Biological Sciences – Lenka Mbadughab
• Business School – Lindsay Tibbetts
• School of Divinity, History and Philosophy & Art History – Helen Pierce
• School of Education – Alyson Young
• School of Engineering – Amir Siddiq
• School of Geosciences – David Green
• School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture – Chris Gray
• School of Law – Alisdair Macpherson
• School of Psychology – Oliver Hamlet
• School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition – Heather Morgan
• School of Natural and Computing Sciences – Rafael Cardoso
• School of Social Science – Stuart Durkin

Working collectively together, we as a University community, are in an excellent position to listen to our Graduate’s voices and influence change. It is hoped that with greater accessibility to data all Schools are in a better position to work together with us deliver on our goals.

Included below is a summary of the results from the 2019/20, and the full report can be found here. The data provided by GO has been quite different to that of the DLHE, and the University has undertaken significant work to prepare new reports in a digestible manner for staff.

The key metrics shown below are reported on and form part of key league tables:

• Employment and/or Further Study: This is a measure indicating the percentage of leavers that are in further work and/or study of all those who are available for work and/or further study. Leavers who are unavailable for work or study due to other activities (e.g., caring, travel, retirement) are exempt from this measure.
• Highly Skilled Employment: This is a measure indicating the percentage of leavers in UK-based employment that are in highly skilled employment (e.g., managers, directors and senior officials; professional occupations; associate professional and technical occupations).
• Domestic University Rankings – “Positive Destination” metrics: These are metrics utilised by the three domestic league table university rankings (the Times & Sunday Times Good University Guide, the Complete University Guide, and the Guardian University Guide) to determine the percentage of leavers that are in a positive destination (i.e., highly-skilled employment and/or graduate level study).
• Graduate Reflections – On Track: This reflective measure indicates the percentage of leavers available for employment who agree that their current activity fits with their future plans (this is used by the Compete University Guide).
• Graduate Reflections – Meaningful: This reflective measure indicates the percentage of leavers available for employment who agree that their current activity is meaningful.
• Graduate Reflections – Skills: This reflective measure indicates the percentage of leavers available for employment who agree that their current activity utilises skills gained from their programme of study.
• Response Rate: This is a measure to indicate the percentage of the GO eligible population of leavers from higher education who responded to the GO survey.

The headline figure for each measure or metric is for UK domiciled full-time first-degree programmes. This is because the full-time first-degree population represents a stable, comparable base between institutions throughout the UK, and this is also the population used by the league tables for their metrics. In addition to UK-domiciled full-time first-degree graduates, other domicile and level of study combinations are provided.

ⵜNote: estimated percentages and ranks are indicated by square brackets.

^[1] GO 2022 rank for this represents an estimate for the Graduate Prospects in the Times & Sunday Times Good University Guide 2023

^[2] GO 2022 data & rank for this represents an estimate for the Graduate Prospects - Outcomes metric in the Complete University Guide 2024

^[3] GO 2022 rank for this represents an estimate for the Graduate Prospects – On Track metric in the Complete University Guide 2024

To summarise:

• The University has risen in percentage terms in eight out of nine measures and metrics considered in this report.
• Despite a fall in overall percentage for the Response Rate metric, the University has risen in sector rankings for Response Rate.
• Five measures and metrics have shown an increase in percentage terms accompanied by an increase in sector rank from the previous year, Employment and/or Further Study, the estimated Graduate Prospects – Outcomes metric from the Complete University Guide, and all three reflections measures.
• Maintained percentage score for the Highly Skilled Employment metric but a fall in ranking against the sector.
• The University sits in the top quartile for two measures and metrics (Graduate Prospects from the Good University Guide, and Response Rate).
• Second quartile for six further measures and metrics (Employment and/or Further Study, Highly Skilled Employment, and Graduate Prospects – Outcomes from the Complete University Guide, Career Prospects from the Guardian University Guide, Graduate Reflections – On Track, and Graduate Reflections – Skills)
• The University has risen from the third to second quartiles in three metrics/measures: Employment and/or Further Study, Graduate Reflections – On Track, and Graduate Reflections – Skills.

To help with accessibility and engagement with the GO data set, a Power BI Dashboard has been created and is now live for staff to interact with. This can be found here.

The amount of data can be overwhelming but if staff have any questions or queries they wish to discuss then please contact your Employability and Skills Champion and your School Careers Officer in the first instance.

Working on the GO survey is a cross institutional task, with colleagues from IT, Planning, Alumni, Registry and Student Experience all involved as well as Careers and Schools. Many of us have roles to play, particularly in communicating the importance of the survey to our current students and ensuring we have contact details to allow us to survey the students many months after they leave us. You may be asked at various points in the year to help with communicating the importance of the survey to students, such as adding a slide at the end of a lecture, helping inform communications and advertising, and assisting in the collection of current email addresses.

In order for us to ensure we're contacting graduates via their current email addresses it is incredibly important that we encourage them to complete our Stay in Touch form which allows them to update their details with our Development & Alumni Relations team. This will allow them to continue to access a range of exclusive benefits and services, events, career support, and volunteering opportunities that may be of interest to them. If you would like any further information about the form or the work of our Development & Alumni Relations team, please contact the team at alumni@abdn.ac.uk.

If you have any questions or queries about the GO Survey or the contents of this update then please do not hesitate to contact me.

Professor John Barrow

Dean for Employability & Entrepreneurship
Chair in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Education