POSTGRADUATE QUALIFICATIONS INCREASINGLY POPULAR WITH EMPLOYERS<br>

Postgraduate qualifications are becoming increasingly popular with employers looking for ways to differentiate between the growing number of graduates with first degrees.

According to the latest Graduate Market Trends report from CSU, the higher education Careers Services Unit, the percentage of jobs advertised requiring postgraduate qualifications nearly doubled from 3.8 per cent to 6.7 per cent during the period 1998 to 2001.

Mike Hill, chief executive, prospects.ac.uk, believes that this increase will come as welcome news for the 400,000 plus postgraduates currently studying in the UK. Also, industries facing skills gaps, such as engineering, will welcome greater prominence given to the value of postgraduate qualifications:

The government''s drive to increase the number of 18-30 year-olds participating in higher education has resulted in first degrees becoming increasingly commonplace. One possible explanation behind increased employer interest in postgraduate qualifications is that they are now regarded as key indicators highlighting the best candidates, he said.

Surprisingly, there are shortfalls in recruitment for PhD places in some of the areas that are in most demand and according to Hill, there is a growing list of disciplines now hit by a recruitment crisis as students leave for better paid jobs outside academe:

Although the financial rewards of work may seem tempting initially, it does not reflect the added value of further study. A recent Skills Task Force study on the effect of postgraduate qualifications on earnings showed that male postgraduates could expect to earn up to twenty per cent more than first-degree male graduates, whereas for women the figure was 34 per cent.

Considering Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) figures point to a 2.4 per cent postgraduate unemployment rate, compared to 5.5 per cent for first degree graduates, and recent AGR figures which show that 31 per cent of employers targeted postgraduates and a further eight per cent intended to, it is clear that postgraduate qualifications are becoming more desirable, he said.

This analysis of the number of job ads specifically requesting postgraduate qualifications was taken from Prospects Today, the weekly CSU publication produced for graduates and professionals and, according to CSU, is the largest of its kind on postgraduate recruitment trends. The information was taken from every job ad since 1998 which specified a postgraduate qualification and resulted in a sample of over 1000 ads.

The survey revealed that the majority of ads for postgraduate students fell within the ''Manufacturing'' and ''Real estate, renting and business activities'' industry sections. The latter of these mainly comprises the industry divisions ''computer related activities'' and ''engineering consultative and design activities''.

It might seem quite surprising that engineering and manufacturing, which have been heavily hit by recession and the strong pound, should be the leading recruiters of postgraduates. However, these industries traditionally have high entry qualifications, with employers often specifically targeting PhD and Masters students, says Hill.

Overall the number of ads requiring postgrad qualifications rose steadily between 1998 and 2000 showing a 182 per cent increase but the number fell in 2001. A significant proportion of the drop is accounted for by ''Manufacturing'' and ''Real estate, renting and business activities'', with ads for the latter falling by nearly a third.

Surprisingly, the drop within this section didn''t involve ''computer related activities'' and ''engineering consultative and design activities'' companies; the real drop occurring in the number of ads from employers in the ''General Management Consultancy activities'' class.

The ''Manufacturing'' section also displayed a similar trend to the ''Real estate, renting and business activities'' showing a 53 per cent increase from 1998 to 2000 and then a drop of 19 per cent in 2001. The recession in manufacturing obviously goes a long way to explaining this but looking at the trends within the section, it is apparent that other factors have influenced this decline.

For the period 1998 to 2000 the industry division ''Manufacture of medical, precision and optical instruments, watches and clocks'' was one of the largest within this section with the number of ads nearly tripling in three years. This division includes telephone companies which would therefore have benefited from wider economic trends, such as the boom in mobile phones. Other divisions have been harder hit by the recession; divisions such as ''Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products'' demonstrated a sudden drop in 2001.

There has also been a fluctuation in the industry divisions which advertised most. For example, in 1998 the top three divisions within the Manufacturing section were ''Manufacture of other non-metallic mineral products'', ''Manufacture of other transport equipment'' and ''Manufacture of medical, precision and optical instruments, watches and clocks''. By 2001 only the latter of these divisions was still in the top three. In total, seven different divisions entered the top three compared to only four different divisions in the ''Real estate, renting and business activities'' section.

This hints at the haphazard state of British manufacturing where periods of boom, during which postgraduate recruitment is at its highest, are followed by lengthy periods of bust, comments Hill.

Other trends in the survey include a slight fall in the number of ''Computing related activities'' postgraduate ads from 2000 to 2001. Between 1998 and 2000, ads in this division doubled but the well-documented demise of the dotcom companies seems to have taken its toll. The construction section has also emerged as a postgraduate recruiter; in 1998, there were no ads for postgraduates in this section but, by 2001, it had risen to become the fourth largest postgraduate recruiter.



Note about Classification and methods

The classification used in this research was the Office of National Statistics'' UK Standard Industrial Classification of Economic Activities 1992, UK SIC (92). The different industries are split up into correspondingly smaller related groups. The largest of these groups is the ''Industry Section'' followed by ''Industry Group'' and ''Industry Class & Subclass''. The research is based on the number of adverts that requested postgraduate qualifications and is not, therefore, a survey of vacancy numbers. This was done to avoid a single employer recruiting a large volume of postgraduates and disproportionately affecting the results.

It is also important to know that the figures for 1998 only commence in May and no adjustment has been made for this, the figures are included here for comparison only. Prospects Today covers nearly all of the industry sectors but some areas of postgraduate study such as law are more likely to advertise in specialist recruitment journals.

CSU

CSU, the higher education Careers Services Unit, works in partnership with AGCAS to maximise the opportunities and support available to all school leavers and students. The CSU service includes over 800 different career guides, graduate marketplace reports and the Prospects Series of recruitment and postgraduate course directories and magazines, career planning software, web and online options to enhance the careers advice provided in higher education careers services. All information is accessible on.