Nearly Half of Engineering Graduates Would Choose a Different Degree Today

LONDON, October 5, 2011 -

Survey by reed.co.uk reveals engineering graduates find their degree courses little help in gaining employment, whilst health and medicine students graduate with the most useful qualifications.

Only 56% of graduates believe their degree has better equipped them for the workplace, according to a new study.

The research, which quizzed over 1,300 people who had completed further education, was conducted by reed.co.uk, which specialises in advertising new vacancies across a range of sectors, from retail jobs to accountancy positions, as well as, jobs in Leeds, Nottingham and other major UK cities.

Health and Medicine and Social Care graduates were most positive about the relevance of their qualifications in obtaining employment after university: 70% of Health and Medicine students either agreed or strongly agreed that a university education had better equipped them for the workplace.  

Whilst this is to be expected for extremely vocational courses, such as medicine and social care, students of Engineering - another course which has traditionally paved a direct path to employment - responded less positively.

Nearly 30% of Engineering graduates do not think their degree has better equipped them for a future of healthy employment.

Furthermore, when asked whether they would make a different choice concerning their university education if they could go back, nearly 44% of Engineering students said they would choose a different course altogether.

Martin Warnes, Managing Director of reed.co.uk, comments:

“The reality is that, during uncertain economic times, relatively few degrees can give new graduates a direct route into a career.

“For most, keeping an open mind, remaining flexible and always considering what transferable skills can be applied to a vacancy, will the best way to get the most from the current jobs market.”

About reed.co.uk:

reed.co.uk is the UK’s leading online recruitment service. Owned by Reed Executive PLC, reed.co.uk enables jobseekers to search over 95,000 jobs from more than 8,000 recruiters across 42 industry sectors.

Registered jobseekers can receive email job alerts, save searches and make their details available to a range of recruiters, including Reed’s network of trained recruitment consultants.

Recruiters of all types benefit from reed.co.uk‘s range of innovative online recruitment solutions, including: online job posting and applicant management; advertise a job with Guaranteed Response; CV Search; targeted branding and email services.

ABCe audited traffic figures for reed.co.uk (January 2011):
Unique Users/Browsers: 3,702,372
Page Impressions: 68,132,104
Online Job Applications: 2,229,410

For further information, please contact Mark Rhodes or Lynn Cahillane on +44(0)20-7067-4582, Email: news at reedonline.co.uk, Dragon Court, 28 Macklin Street, London, WC2B 5LX