Alternative Pathways into the Labour Market: Report Written by Dr Craig Holmes and Professor Ken Mayhew Published by CIPD

Pembroke Fellow in Economics Dr Craig Holmes and Emeritus Fellow Professor Ken Mayhew have co-written a report entitled ‘Alternative Pathways into the Labour Market’, published this week by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

The report, available to read and download here, was commissioned by the CIPD, the professional body for HR and people development, to examine issues surrounding over-qualification among UK graduates (previous CIPD research has shown that more than half of graduates are working in non-graduate jobs).

At a time when the average student leaves university with £44,000 of debt and, according to a Government estimate, 45% of the value of student loans will not be repaid, this report argues that the Government must end the ‘conveyor belt’ approach to university. Instead, they should focus time and resources on creating high-quality vocational pathways into the workplace, which are less costly and where a smaller proportion of this lower cost falls on the learner.

The research examines how the work performed by graduates has changed over the past four decades. It does this by focusing on a selection of occupations that employ a large share of people and that take on graduates in greater and greater numbers despite historically employing mostly those who had not been to university. These include managers in production, manufacturing and retail, chartered accountants, programmers, nurses, police officers, nursery nurses, teaching assistants and administrators. The report finds that, in many cases, graduate skill levels are not a requirement.

The report also considers whether people in jobs which do have high skill requirements necessarily needed to have gained these skills through university study. The research argues that, in many cases, there is little evidence that those required skills haven’t been effectively produced outside of university, either through further vocational education or, in many cases, training and learning on the job. Based on recent history and European comparisons, it would seem that apprenticeships and other vocational pathways into the labour market are plausible and are typically lower cost, both overall and, in particular, to individual students.

Dr Craig Holmes summarised: ‘There are many reasons to go to university, but our report argues that, given the labour market outcomes of recent cohorts, the possession of unique skills and capabilities unavailable to others, and the resulting guarantee of finding a highly skilled job, is not one of them. That said, students and their parents will continue to want to go to university in high numbers because that still offers the best chance of attaining a great job, even if a large proportion will miss out.’

On the potential implications of the report’s findings, Dr Holmes added: ‘The challenge for policymakers is huge. High quality alternative routes, such as advanced apprenticeships, need to be created and employers need to be willing to accept and recruit the graduates of such alternative routes. This, alongside moves to raise the overall demand for skill where possible and push the UK further up the value chain, should be the focus of the government’s renewed focus on industrial policy.’

Dr Craig Holmes is a Senior Research Fellow on the Employment, Equity and Growth programme with INET@Oxford and is an Associate at SKOPE, a multi-disciplinary centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance, based in the Department of Education at the University of Oxford.

Ken Mayhew is Emeritus Professor of Education and Economic Performance at the University of Oxford, an Extraordinary Professor at Maastricht University, and was the founding Director of SKOPE.