Graduate Employment Rate is defined as the percentage of graduates who go on to paid (non-voluntary) work within 15 months of finishing their degree. We consider any mode of employment (full-time or part-time), even if unknown. We do not consider graduates who are on voluntary or unpaid work, continuing further study, or unavailable for work due to military service, disability, travel, or caring needs.
Universities or third-party providers (such as HESA) usually run employment surveys to get such data. We require the response rate to be more that 20% to consider the survey results representative.
Whenever Graduate Employment Rate is not available, we use the minimum recorded rate for the country (or region, if the number of domestic data points are insufficient).
If the surveys were conducted sooner than the 15 month post-graduation period, we apply a positive adjustment to take into account the decreased likelihood of employment at the stage of survey.
To calculate the scores, we consider the difference between each institution’s rate and the average in each location.