Graduate chances of finding work improve

The proportion of graduates finding work when they leave university has gone up for the second year in a row.

A survey of 204,165 graduates by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). found that graduate unemployment stands at 6.1%, down 0.5 percentage points on last year.

Authors of the report, What Do Graduates Do?, said the graduate labour market was recovering from the dotcom collapse of the 1990s as well as a general slowdown in the market.

Mike Hill, chief executive of the HESA, said the statistics were good news for the economy and for graduates.

“The highs of the mid-1990s, when graduate unemployment hovered around 5%, may seem a distant memory but confidence has clearly returned and graduate recruiters are once more increasing their graduate intake,” he told the Financial Times.

The students most likely to get a job were those who took architecture degrees, where there is a 3.3% rate of unemployment. Just behind them were lawyers and civil engineers.

Last year more than 10,000 law degrees were awarded – the first time the number has risen above this mark. Law students now make up one in every 23 students.