Over the last decade, users have regularly submitted feedback to HESA for more data to be published at sub-regional level.
Reducing spatial inequalities both within and between regions is a key policy aim across all UK nations. With prior literature having illustrated the positive association between the prosperity of an area and the proportion of graduates based in that vicinity, one of the topics on which more detailed geographic information has been asked for is graduate mobility.
Previous exploration of this issue at regional level has enabled analysts to identify different groups of graduates, such as “returners” (those who leave their home region to pursue higher education, but return for work) and “loyals” (those who study and end up employed in their initial region of domicile).
However, this can mask movement within regions. For example, among “loyals”, there could be individuals that migrate away from their local area for work elsewhere in the region, while others find a job in their place of residence. Such transfers may have implications for individual outcomes and the wider local/national economy.
To address such limitations, we disseminated the first iteration of a new graduate mobility marker back in 2022, which was based on local authority (council area in Scotland and local government district in Northern Ireland) of residence/employment and region of study.
Evolving user needs
2025 saw a refreshed Code of Practice for Statistics enter the public domain. Within this, it is stated that;
Value is not a static or one-off outcome, but a continuous and interactive process. Producers should engage with users and other stakeholders to understand their needs and be responsive to changing demands, data availability, and policy contexts.
The development of new statistics is therefore expected to involve an ongoing dialogue between users and producers to determine whether needs are being met. Shortly after we circulated our new marker, one of the comments we received was the potential limitation of using region of study to fully understand mobilities within Scotland (the same issue would also apply in Wales and Northern Ireland). More recently, local data was a topic discussed at the inaugural UK Statistics Assembly, with the final report from this event noting that “regional data does not provide sufficient information to allow analysis of the variation within the region” and “it is important to ensure all national data is available at least at the local authority level”.
Our initial marker was also restricted to UK-domiciled graduates. Customer queries have lately asked about the potential to extend the field to cover international graduates who study here and are also found to be in work in the country fifteen months after graduation. Furthermore, an All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) report on the impact of international graduates also cited a requirement for data on their mobility.
Updating our methodology
To address these needs, we have released a research insight that introduces an expanded version of our mobility marker. For UK-domiciled students, we continue to utilise their postcode prior to commencing their studies to capture their local authority of domicile. However, to incorporate international students into the marker, we assign them a UK residence utilising the postcode of their term-time accommodation in their year of graduation. Location of work remains based on responses we receive on employment outcomes in the Graduate Outcomes survey.
The other key alteration we have made to the marker is to move from using region to local authority for place of study. This was achieved by using the campus identifier field from the Student return prior to the 2022-23 academic year (or the main campus postcode if this was not available). For 2022-23 onwards, we draw upon the venue postcode at which the student was recorded as spending the majority of their time.
Key findings
To understand the added value that this field can offer, we now present some results from our initial analysis of the marker that align with present areas of policy focus. We begin with the mobility of international graduates.
The mobility of international graduates
The importance of retaining international graduates to support the wider economic needs of an area has been highlighted as part of the National Islands Plan in Scotland, while the Tertiary Education and Research (Wales) Act 2022 requires Medr to explore how international students who choose to study in the country can subsequently contribute to economic and social well-being in Wales.
Using Graduate Outcomes data encompassing the academic years 2017-18 to 2022-23 (inclusive) that has been linked to the HESA Student record, the first key finding to note is that nearly half of international graduates who were domiciled in Wales based on their term-time accommodation leave the country for work – often moving towards London, as well as the South East and South West of England. Scotland sees 35 per cent of its international graduates depart for another part of the UK for employment, while the figure is 25 per cent in Northern Ireland.
However, only a small percentage of international students initially living in England are found to have transferred elsewhere in the UK for work. Among those international graduates who remain in the same UK nation throughout, we observe that they are often already based in the large cities from the outset (e.g. Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh and London) or relocate to such places for their jobs.
The mobility of UK-domiciled graduates
Additionally, governments across all nations of the UK have set the ambition to not only generate higher levels of growth, but to do so in a manner that reduces geographic inequalities. Providers within the sector are looking to support this objective by working with other establishments in their area (e.g. employers and councils) to help their graduates into suitable employment that meets local skills needs. Indeed, a growing number of universities are publishing civic agreements, which will often refer to serving their local communities through plugging skills gaps.
Here too, our enhanced marker can assist both providers and policymakers with new insights. Our initial exploration of the mobility of UK-domiciled graduates has highlighted that if individuals do remain in the same area for work as their location of study (irrespective of whether they were originally living in that locality), they will tend to be already based in the major cities across the UK.
The Northern Growth Strategy was distributed earlier this year, which discussed the ambition of raising prosperity across all parts of Northern England, so that growth was not solely concentrated within the major conurbations. Furthermore, graduate retention was noted as a challenge facing these regions. Our exploration shows that around three quarters of graduates residing in either the North East, North West or Yorkshire and The Humber remain in the same region for work. However, with past literature noting a positive correlation between the share of graduates in a locality and productivity, a noticeable trend we did observe is that individuals in these areas move towards large cities (e.g. Newcastle, Leeds, Manchester) for study and/or work, resulting in outflows from surrounding areas such as Hartlepool, Kirklees and Oldham.
Building narratives through HESA data
Over the past few years, we have aimed to produce a range of new UK-wide measures, including an area-based measure of deprivation, a component of job quality and now a more granular mobility marker.
Not only can these measures bring benefits to users when employed individually, but they can also assist with answering prominent questions being asked within society when utilised together. For example, providers across the UK want to ensure that their graduates achieve fulfilment in their lives and have access to good quality jobs. Simultaneously, they are also expected to contribute solutions to the challenges being faced in their local areas.
Drawing on these variables concurrently can help providers assess whether those from more deprived backgrounds are moving into jobs in the local area that align with their career aspirations, while also requiring them to deploy the skills they developed through study. That is, by using the data in this way, providers are able to evaluate their widening participation activity (which increasingly emphasises a need to focus on graduate destinations in all nations), while also being able to explore their outcomes and impact in relation to their civic missions.
Our goal with this new marker is to go through a similar generation cycle as with the Socioeconomic Index for Small Areas (SEISA) and hence see it move from research to official statistics in development, with the end objective to have it become an official statistic.
We are therefore keen to hear user views on this updated marker and how they may implement this measure in their own work, as well any statistics they wish to see HESA publish in this space in future. Please email us with your thoughts at official.statistics@hesa.ac.uk.
The full insight and associated charts can be viewed on the HESA website: Moving local: An update to our graduate mobility marker. Read HESA’s latest research releases. If you would like to be kept updated on future publications, please sign-up to our mailing list.
