Recent data has shown that the unemployment rate for graduates six months after leaving university fell to 5.1% this year.
Prospects’ ‘What do graduates do? 2018’ report revealed that this figure is the lowest since the 1979 survey when it was 4.9%.
Employment increased from 74.2% to 76.6% (184,295) as 4,540 more graduates found jobs compared to last year. The proportion of employed graduates in professional-level roles also increased, from 71.4% to 73.9%.
According to the report, skills shortages across many industries appear to have helped job prospects with increases in those entering professional jobs across all degree subjects. More graduates qualified in high demand subjects, such as IT, engineering, accountancy and marketing; went into their vocationally linked roles as a result.
Charlie Ball, head of higher education intelligence at Prospects, commented, “Skills shortages have been a feature of the graduate labour market since the recovery from the last recession. There are signs that this may have helped to fuel a modest rise in salaries as well as job prospects.”
He added, “There are longstanding and persistent concerns about skills mismatch and underutilisation of many graduates who aren’t getting the opportunity to use their talent effectively. As employers have persistent difficulty recruiting the graduates they require, we need to do more to bring capable graduates who cannot find suitable work together with the employers that are looking for them.
“As a linked issue, although zero hours contracts do not represent a large proportion of the graduate labour market, they are growing in importance and that growth should be monitored.”
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