Exploring the Graduate Outcomes data for entrepreneurial activity: A first look at the new UK survey of graduate destinations

Topic

Policy makers and others charged with driving economic growth often assume a link between entrepreneurship education and business start-up. However, there is little by way of supporting literature in this regard, with few studies exploring impact measures that relate to actual venture creation. One potentially useful large-scale source of impact data was the UK’s Destinations of Leavers of Higher Education in which graduates could report that they were self-employed or undertaking business start-up activity 6 months after graduation (Smith, 2015). The DLHE came to an end after surveying the cohort of students graduating in 2015/2016, however.

The Graduate Outcome (GO) survey is a population survey of almost all graduates of higher education in the UK (HESA, 2022) 15 months after they finish their studies. The first GO survey, taking over from DLHE, was conducted in 2019/2020, collecting data from students graduating in 2017/2018. GO refined and extended DLHE questions on self-employment and business start-up and asked about employment of others and sources of business funding for the first time. It offers a rich source of information on the entrepreneurial destinations of leavers from higher education near the beginning of their graduate-level employment journey.

Aim

This presentation will explore the results of the 2017/2018 GO survey, providing the first look at the numbers of self-reported self-employed graduates and those reporting that they are running their own business. It will explore the sources of funding that recent graduates are using to pursue their entrepreneurial ideas, and present information on the numbers of employees of graduate-run businesses. Regional differences of graduating university will be explored. The presentation will also explore graduate self-employment and business start-up relating to the way in which universities use the capabilities and resources available to them to engage in knowledge exchange activities, using the Knowledge Exchange Framework cluster groups.

Methodology

Subject-level Graduate Outcomes data by institution for the 2017/2018 survey was licensed for analysis by HESA using an Enterprise Education Research Project Fund grant from EEUK. In addition to the standard destination activity (e.g. paid employment or further study), the dataset included fields relating to self-reported self-employment and business start-up, number of employees, and sources of business funding. KEF cluster grouping were obtained from publicly available information in order to explore institutional approaches to business and knowledge exchange, and the region of each institution was also added to the dataset to enable regional analysis.

Contribution

Here, we present for the first time, a description of the GO survey and discuss its appropriateness for measuring the impact enterprise education and entrepreneurship support. As this is the first year of data that the GO has collected, this paper can be used as a benchmark description that future years can be mapped against. The results explore the rates of self-employment and business start-up activity of UK graduates who completed their studies in 2017/2018 by gender and subject area. The rates of graduates from Institutional groupings by region and KEF cluster is also presented.

Implications for policy

The presentation will first provide a description of the GO dataset and the type of data that is available for exploration. This will be a useful starting point for debate about the contribution of higher education institutions to graduate entrepreneurship. The results presented here can be used as a benchmark to explore changes in activity going forward. It may, for example, be possible to link regional and national policy interventions to changes in activity, or to explore the impact of the economic environment at the time of graduation on early-stage career choice and action.