- Oct 14, 2018
- 6 min
Local work for local graduates?
I was delighted last week to read about the launch of The Office for Students’ competition fund initiative to help ‘universities and colleges looking for innovative ways to help students find graduate-level employment close to home’. It is great to see growing awareness of issues around geographical mobility (or immobility) of graduates and what this means for their career pathways. This is something that I have written lots about over the years, along with people like Charli
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- Jan 6, 2016
- 2 min
Rural labour markets of the future?
Charlie Ball (who writes the High Peak Data blog) has just written about his predictions for the graduate labour market in 2016… In his blog he makes this prediction: The urbanisation of graduate work
Graduate employment is concentrated in cities, and that shows no sign of of changing soon. Over 40% of the working population in Newcastle, Manchester, York, Sheffield, Leeds, Bristol, Bath, Oxford, Cambridge, Cardiff, Swansea, Newport, Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow ha
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- Nov 13, 2015
- 2 min
Stats busting: the Higher Education experiences of students from Orkney and Shetland
So, as part of my PhD I have been looking at the destinations of higher education graduates who were originally based in Orkney and Shetland. I have looked at data collected as part of the annual Destination of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) survey over a five year period and some initial observations were published recently in the latest Graduate Market Trends. Basically I make several observations: In terms of which Higher Education Institutions students are graduatin
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- Apr 20, 2015
- 3 min
Orkney Research in Progress Conference
A couple of weeks ago I went to the Orkney Research in Progress Conference, I meant to blog about it at the time but I’ve only just got to it now! The conference was arranged by Orkney Heritage Society, and included a fantastic range of speakers. My presentation was on the career and migration pathways of students from Orkney and Shetland (no surprise there!) and in the presentation I covered some national trends in entry to Higher Education and destinations from Higher Educa
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- Feb 7, 2015
- 2 min
Graduate Mobility and Employment
Charlie Ball’s report on Graduate Migration patterns I have just read Charlie Ball’s excellent report: Loyals, Stayers, Returners and Incomers: Graduate migration patterns. I’ve been interested in Charlie’s work for some time, ever since coming across his earlier report into graduate migration patterns in the West of England. What this current report shows, as with his previous work, is that employment outcomes and graduate migration patterns are interrelated. So, for example
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- Nov 11, 2014
- 1 min
Orkney and Shetland Student Survey is live! Can you help….?
Well, this is exciting. The first stage of my PhD project – a survey of final year undergraduates from Orkney and Shetland has just gone live! Image courtesy of mrpuen at FreeDigitalPhotos.net So, if you lived in Orkney or Shetland before going on to study for a degree, and you are due to graduate in 2015 please do take part! The survey is available online at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6XWVS2M Alternatively you can download the Final Research Information Sheet and Survey
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- Oct 15, 2014
- 2 min
Graduates should be matched to local jobs… just an urban issue?
I just read this article by Times Higher Education: “Graduates should be matched to local jobs says report”. This article refers to the UniverCities report, which looks at how universities can support city growth. Part of the backdrop to the report is the issue of graduate migration after graduation – some graduates will return to their familial homes and others will be drawn to the bright lights of London, which potentially deprives their university towns and cities of the
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- Nov 28, 2013
- 1 min
NICEC article
Well, this is exciting. I have just published my first article about my research! The article appears in the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling journal for October, and covers the main findings of my masters research, as well as offering some suggestions for careers advisers working with clients in rural areas.The link is below if you fancy a read – do let me know what you think… rosie-alexander-nicec-journal-oct2013 #NICEC #CareersAdvice #rural #Alexande
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- Oct 24, 2013
- 2 min
Unemployed people more likely to hold a degree in areas with low unemployment? Really? That makes Or
So, here’s a weird thing I discovered while browsing the 2001 census data for Scotland (as you do). I knew that Orkney and Shetland had some of the lowest unemployment levels in Scotland, but did you know that the proportion of unemployed people who hold a degree in Orkney and Shetland is among the highest in Scotland? In fact 16.43% of unemployed people in Orkney held a degree (or equivalent qualification) – the third highest rate in Scotland (behind the City of Edinburgh an
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- Oct 7, 2013
- 2 min
The role of humour in the creation of island graduate identities
What I love about research is the way that interesting ideas come at you sideways. So, a couple of weeks ago I met a friend who is based at the Centre for Nordic Studies in Orkney and has been researching the relationship between language and identity focussing on the community of Stromness from the 1960s to the present. She leant me her masters dissertation into the dialogical negotiation of cultural identity in Orkney and it was fascinating! I particularly loved the discuss
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- May 5, 2013
- 2 min
“Moving home” or “moving for employment” – Trends in Graduate Migratio
I have just been reading a short paper: ‘The complex migration pathways of UK graduates’[1]. In this project an online survey was conducted of graduates from Southampton University (2001-7) capturing data about their movements and statuses over 5 years. The main finding is that migration choices after University can be complex with: ‘approximately one quarter of respondents [being] highly mobile during the five year period after leaving university (they moved between 5-8 time
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- Apr 14, 2013
- 3 min
What Use is a Degree?
I’ve just finished reading ‘What use is a degree? Life-stories of University Graduates’ by Ward, Jones and Jenkins. This book collects eighteen different life stories of graduates from the Oxford Brookes Geography degree from six cohorts: 1979, 1982, 1985, 1988, 1991 and 1994. The stories in the book are concise, interesting and occasionally moving accounts of graduates about their experiences at University and after. What interested me in this book was the importance given t
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