Government statisticians at the DfE and across the civil service have been undertaking some interesting analysis of where graduates work – by sector and academic qualification level– and how the numbers change over time. The basic source is tax returns, so the data is obviously subject to a time lag and backward looking. Nevertheless, there is some interesting data to discuss in relation to the education classification. LEO Graduate and Postgraduate Outcomes, Tax year 2020-21 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk)

Now, I assume that ‘Education’ as a grouping will include both state and private schools plus further education.  The dashboards contain a wealth of data about those working in many sectors, including education; one, three, five and ten years after graduation. Data is provided for different academic levels, of which Frist Degree and Level 7 qualifications (taught and research) are probably the most useful.

Education is also one of the sectors where the number of graduates decreased between one and three years after graduation, but increased again between three and five years; presumably because of the influx of career changers outweighing the numbers leaving. By ten years, the overall number has fallen, as would be expected. How Education compares with other sectors might be worth considering, to see the extent to which retention is not just an issue for the Education sector.

As the time period for the ten years covered in the analysis includes the years when there was either a public sector pay-freeze or wage levels in some parts of the country lagged parts of the private sector it is possible to see that the Education sector in London is at the lower end of reported median earnings for the different sectors, whereas in the North East median earnings after ten years for the education sector appear more competitive. This may well be because the opportunities for graduates in the North East are less than in London and the South East, and the lack of demand has an effect on salary levels.

The Sankey charts of regional flows show how relatively little movement between regions there is for those with Level 7 qualifications on entry into the Education sector. However, ‘abroad’ does feature in the table, showing that teaching as this blog has said, is now a global profession and those with Level 7 qualifications in education are moving overseas by the ten year point from graduation.

When the STRB Report is finally released by the government, it will be interesting to see the extent to which this type of data has been used in the discussions about the pay of teachers compared with that of other graduate professions.

Pay may not be the only factor persuading graduates to work in education, but it must have some effect on numbers choosing the profession when the economy is able to offer other opportunities for graduates.

Indeed, as the wider economy hires more graduates, the need to keep teaching competitive in pay and conditions terms will become even more important. As this blog has pointed out before, the porter of the nineteen-century became the forklift truck driver of the twentieth century and is now the warehouse software engineer of the twenty first century. Neither of the first two were likely to be drawn from the ranks of those that could be teachers: the modern group of software engineers most certainly are graduates that could have become a teacher.