Higher Education Graduate Outcomes Statistics: UK, 2019/20

Higher Education Graduate Outcomes Statistics: UK, 2019/20 This Statistical Bulletin is the annual first release of Graduate Outcomes survey data. These experimental statistics cover UK higher education providers (HEPs) including alternative providers (APs) and further education colleges (FECs) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Data is collected approximately 15 months after HE course completion. While the first two cohorts of 2019/20 finished their higher education courses before the start of the pandemic, the Covid-19 outbreak was declared a pandemic on 11 March 2020, as the third cohort of the 2019/20 survey year was finishing their studies; the final cohort completed their higher education courses between May and July 2020, during the gradual easing of the first national lockdown. Conversely, the first two cohorts were surveyed between December 2020 and May 2021, while Covid restrictions of one sort or another were in place across the UK. The third cohort was surveyed as restrictions were gradually phased out, while the final cohort was surveyed against a backdrop of rising case numbers but few legal restrictions on activity. In our investigation of the impacts of the pandemic on the graduate experience, we saw little overall change since the start of the pandemic, and those differences which we have seen have been less marked between 2018/19 and 2019/20 than they were between 2017/18 and 2019/20. This statistical bulletin has been produced by HESA in collaboration with statisticians from the Office for Students, the Department for Education, 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.