What New Skills Will Graduate Require in the Future?

The labour market for graduates is constantly evolving and job applicants are often expected to have new types of academic and non-academic skills.  How can universities ensure their students acquire the most sought-after new skills that will make them most successful in their jobs? Our new Erasmus+ project aims at establishing a labour market to higher education feedback loop that will help universities to keep up to date with the new skill requirements.
The Employability Programme Development (EPD) project, which is led by the University of Glasgow, started in September 2020 and is expected to complete in August 2023.
The initial results from our focus groups can be found here.
If you are or have recently been involved in graduate recruitment, please let us know what skills are valued by your organisation by completing our survey, here.

Outcomes of Minority Graduates

Ethnic minority graduates are less likely to obtain a “good degree” compared to white British graduates.  Is a “good degree” a good measure of (un-)equal attainment?  What are the determinants of such attainment gaps for ethnic minority students, and how can we reduce them?
Once in the labour market, how large are employment and wage gaps, and how they evolve over people’s lives?
Results on labour market inequalities for UK graduates can be found here.

Wellbeing and Work

Work and employment affect and are affected by wellbeing.   We focus on the relationship between wellbeing (life satisfaction) and labour market outcomes:
1. Is the negative effect of unemployment on life satisfaction the same for everybody? Find our initial results here.
2. Is there always a positive effect of a job change on life satisfaction?
3. Are happier students more likely to find a job when they first enter the labour market?  Find our initial results here.

Accommodating Diversity in the Workplace

With colleagues at the University of Reading, we want to create a two-way dialogue between academic researchers, employers and other stakeholders. Our aim is to reach a shared understanding around issues related to diversity and inclusion in the workplace and their implications for good workplace practice and policy.  You can find details of our work, past and future workshops, and way to engage with us here.