Life after higher education : the diversity of opportunities and obstacles in a changing graduate labour market

From the latter part of the twentieth century and onwards progressively rapid industrial restructuring, technological change and globalization have changed the parameters of employment. Governments’ assessments of the skills required for economic growth and development have driven higher education investment and expansion policies in the UK, as they have internationally. Looking across OECD countries, it has recently been estimated that an average of 40 per cent of young adults are likely to complete undergraduate (tertiary Type-A) education during their lifetime, with graduation rates in European countries ranging from half or more in Finland, Iceland, Poland and Russia to less than a quarter in Belgium, Greece, Estonia (OECD, 2014). Higher education (HE) has become a global industry – part of the ‘knowledge economy’ that it serves – and this is reflected in increasing education-led migration and mobility – both of EU and overseas students to study in UK and of UK students to study overseas