Subject differences in graduate employment across Europe

This is the third of six reports commissioned by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) which draw on a recent European Commission (EC) Framework project, The Flexible Professional in the Knowledge Society (the REFLEX project). The project, undertaken by 11 European countries, was an investigation into the employment experiences of European graduates over the five years following their graduation in 2000. By design, the UK sample comprised graduates who had completed a Bachelors degree in 2000. In most of the other countries, the samples comprised wholly (or mainly) those with a Masters degree. This report looks at the interaction between subject and country differences in terms of the profiles and experiences of students, their transition into employment, their success in the labour market, the features of their workplaces, their perceived competences and their values. Much of the analysis uses a typology of subject differences which distinguishes between non-vocational arts, vocational arts, non-vocational science and vocational science courses.