Data digest: March 2022

Welcome to Luminate's monthly summary of the key data and developments in higher education, careers services, graduate recruitment and the labour market

This month on Luminate

• The golden question to ask when building a graduate programme - Ella Franceys, programme lead at Wiser, provides guidance to employers on how to put together a graduate scheme, arguing that defining the programme's purpose is the key question to answer both at the outset and throughout the process.[Luminate]
• How graduate employers can create an inclusive culture - representatives of employers including BAE Systems, Autotrader and LexisNexis Risk Solutions give their thoughts on how to achieve a diverse workforce through recruitment, training and other techniques. [Luminate]
• Why we need early talent development in 2022 - as Wiser's programmes manager Charlotte Burton-Barker explains, Gen-Z graduates place more importance on learning and development than their predecessors - making attracting and especially retaining early talent a greater challenge than ever for employers. [Luminate]

Charlie Ball's LMI update

In his latest update, Jisc's senior consultant for labour market intelligence, Charlie Ball, takes a look at a report from the Institute of Physics (IoP) on the skills in the UK:

Significant unmet demand for physics skills exists, with a substantial number of physics-demanding roles at any one time - nearly 9,000 high-duration vacancies in mid-2021, having quickly recovered to pre-pandemic levels - seeming to persist in being hard to fill. A shortage of qualified physics teachers remains a barrier to improving physics skills.

News in summary

• Western careers advice for international students 'misdirected' - universities are failing international students by focusing careers advice on jobs in the host country and multinationals to the exclusion of employers from their own region. [Times Higher Education]
• Government criticised for axing public sector apprenticeship target - the decision not to extend the target, which meant public bodies with more than 250 employees had to employ an average of 2.3% of staff as new apprentices starts, was criticised by Labour and the Association of Employment and Learning Providers. [FE Week]
• Two years of COVID: How has the pandemic changed the labour market in our cities? - the Centre for Cities finds that the immediate impact of the pandemic on labour markets was fairly similar across the UK's major urban centres, but the recovery has been asymmetrical. [Centre for Cities]

Research from the Luminate library

 Tailoring careers provision for postgraduate taught students - this study by researchers at Lancaster University investigates how careers provision can be more effectively optimised for postgraduate taught students, taking into account the specific characteristics of PG students and their motivations for undertaking further study. [Luminate]

Written by

Dan Mason

Editorial manager

Prospects