UK: Top class degrees earn more jobs

It pays to study hard and get a better class of degree in Britain. Latest figures show that graduates obtaining lower seconds and thirds are around two-and-a-half times more likely to be unemployed six months after graduating than those with firsts.

The annual destination of leavers from a higher education survey for 2005-06 reveals that 4.4% and 5.7% of students gaining first and upper second class honours respectively were unemployed compared with 8.1% of those with a lower second, and 11.3% for a third.

Almost all graduates in medicine, dentistry and veterinary sciences had jobs – 99.7%, with the overall employment rate at 93.2%.

Computer science students fared the worst at 88.6%, although these figures are a slight improvement on 2002-03 when the overall rate was 92.5%.

Younger students were more successful than mature ones: their employment rates were 93.6% and 91.3% respectively. And women (94.6%) did better than men (91.3%).

The Higher Education Statistics Agency based its analysis on responses from 188,330 first-degree graduates in full-time study in 2005-06. Of these, first-class honours accounted for 12.3% of awards, upper seconds for 48.4%, lower seconds for 28.5%, thirds for 4.9% and unclassified degrees for 6.0%.

Another recent report from the Higher Education Careers Services Unit on employment rates of 2005 postgraduates in their first six months following graduation, found a slight fall in unemployment levels for masters graduates, 0.6 per cent, to 4.2 % since 2004.

More than seven in 10 found work in the six months period, while 9.5% claimed to be working and studying, and 7.7% continued to study. The remaining 6.5% were travelling, or gave other commitments which prevented them from seeking full time employment.

More on the Higher Education Statistics Agency site