Graduate Employability Statistics 2026: Outcomes by Degree, Field, and Country

Choosing a degree — and at what level — is one of the largest financial decisions most people make. The graduate employability statistics for 2026 show a labour market that continues to reward advanced credentials, yet with meaningful variation across fields of study, degree levels, and national contexts. This data roundup draws on the most recent authoritative releases: HESA Graduate Outcomes (2022/23 cohort, published July 2025), the NACE Winter 2026 Salary Survey, OECD Education at a Glance 2025, the QILT Australian Graduate Outcomes Survey 2024, and Statistics Canada National Graduates Survey data.

Whether you are weighing a bachelor’s against a master’s, choosing between STEM and humanities, or comparing destination countries, the figures below provide a sourced, data-first picture of what graduates can realistically expect in the labour market in 2026.

Employment Rates by Degree Level (OECD)

The most comprehensive cross-national dataset on graduate employment comes from the OECD’s Education at a Glance 2025, which covers 25-to-64-year-olds across member countries. The data shows a consistent step-up in employment rates with each additional qualification level.

The overall earnings premium for completing any tertiary degree averages 54% above upper secondary attainment across OECD countries, though this figure varies substantially by country and field. The doctoral employment advantage is particularly notable: at 93%, PhD holders show the highest labour market participation of any educational group — reflecting both strong demand in research, healthcare, and technical sectors and the self-selection of highly motivated individuals into doctoral programmes.

Graduate outcomes are directly shaped by the thesis or dissertation produced during postgraduate study. Students who understand how many references and citations are expected at each level — as detailed in our thesis citation count statistics for 2026 — tend to submit stronger work and complete on time, which in turn affects the 15-month outcomes captured in surveys like HESA Graduate Outcomes.

UK Graduate Outcomes: HESA 2022/23 Data

The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) published its Graduate Outcomes survey results in July 2025, covering 917,610 eligible graduates from the 2022/23 academic year, surveyed 15 months after completing their studies.

Headline figures

• 88% of 2022/23 graduates were in work or further study 15 months after graduating.
• 59% were in full-time employment; 11% in part-time employment; 10% in employment combined with further study.
• 6% were unemployed — up one percentage point from the 2021/22 cohort.
• 82% were in employment or unpaid work at the survey point.
• Median full-time salary: £28,500 (up from £27,500 for the 2021/22 cohort).
• 76% of UK-employed graduates were in high-skilled roles; 82% for science graduates, 72% for non-science graduates.

UK graduate salaries by subject

High-skilled employment and unemployment by subject

Science graduates were more likely to be in full-time employment (60%) than non-science graduates (57%) at the 15-month survey point. Computing graduates recorded the highest unemployment rate among all subject groups (10%), followed by Business and management graduates (8%). These figures reflect the interaction of field-specific hiring timelines and the broader softening of parts of the technology job market visible through 2023–2024.

UK postgraduate outcomes

UK Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) data, published June 2025 and covering the 2022/23 tax year, shows that graduates holding a postgraduate degree earned a median of £47,000, compared with £42,000 for those with only a first degree — a premium of approximately 12% in nominal terms five or more years post-graduation. Postgraduates were also more likely to be in high-skilled employment: 79% compared with 67.9% for first-degree holders.

US Graduate Salaries: NACE Class of 2026

The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) Winter 2026 Salary Survey provides employer-projected starting salaries for the Class of 2026. These figures represent projected averages across responding employers in the US, not post-hoc reported earnings, so they indicate employer expectations rather than confirmed outcomes — a useful indicator of demand-side conditions entering the 2026 graduate season.

Starting salaries by major — bachelor’s degree, Class of 2026

Master’s level — computer sciences top earner

At the master’s level, NACE projects computer sciences graduates as the highest-paid group for the Class of 2026, with an average starting salary of $94,212 — a 10.9% increase year-on-year. Engineering master’s graduates are projected at $92,873. These figures illustrate the premium attached to advanced technical credentials in the current US market.

Hiring volume

Despite the strong salary trajectory, NACE data shows hiring volume for the Class of 2026 is essentially flat, with employers projecting just a 1.6% increase in new graduate hires compared with the previous cohort — though more optimistic mid-cycle estimates revised that upward to 5.6% after a third of respondents reported plans to expand graduate intake. Business, engineering, and computer sciences disciplines collectively feature in at least 60% of employer hiring plans.

Australia: QILT Graduate Outcomes Survey 2024

The Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching (QILT) Graduate Outcomes Survey captures short-term outcomes for Australian graduates approximately four to six months after completing their studies. The 2024 survey, covering the graduating class of 2023, reflects the continued cooling of the Australian labour market after the post-pandemic hiring surge.

• Overall undergraduate employment rate: 86.9% (down from 88.9% in 2023)
• Full-time employment rate for domestic undergraduates: 74.0% (down from 79.0% in 2023, but still above the 72.2% pre-pandemic 2019 baseline)
• The largest drop was among undergraduate degree holders; postgraduate employment rates declined more modestly.

Longitudinal data adds an important dimension: domestic undergraduates who had a full-time employment rate of 79.5% immediately after graduation in 2022 saw that rate rise to 91.7% three years later, according to the 2025 GOS-L follow-up. This confirms that short-term graduate employment figures consistently understate longer-run labour market outcomes.

Field-specific QILT data shows that vocational and professional study areas (medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, nursing) have consistently higher short-term employment rates than generalist degrees — a gap that narrows substantially over a three-to-five year horizon as graduates from broader disciplines establish themselves in the workforce.

Sources: QILT Graduate Outcomes Survey; QILT GOS Longitudinal 2024

Canada: Graduate Employment Rates

Statistics Canada’s National Graduates Survey data shows that the vast majority of Canadian graduates who had not returned to school within three years of completing their studies were employed, with rates ranging from 90% for college graduates to 93% for doctoral graduates. A 2025 Statistics Canada study of international student graduates found that 90.3% of graduates who remained in Canada three years after completing their education were employed, with Canadian graduates reaching 91.0% and international student graduates at 88.6%.

The Canadian graduate labour market has faced pronounced structural challenges in 2025. Analysis of Statistics Canada labour force data published by the Labour Market Information Council (LMIC) shows that entry-level postings for business, marketing, and human resources roles fell by nearly 40% in the first quarter of 2025, while policy, research, and legal roles declined by approximately one third. These sector-specific contractions reflect both public-sector hiring restraint and broader corporate restructuring, rather than a uniform deterioration in graduate prospects. STEM and healthcare fields have remained more resilient.

Source: Statistics Canada, International Student Graduates’ Labour Market Outcomes, 2025; LMIC, Eligible Bachelors: Canada’s Newest University Graduates

Employment and Salary by Field of Study

Field of study is consistently one of the strongest predictors of both employment rate and salary level in the first years after graduation, though its influence diminishes over a decade-long career as experience and postgraduate qualifications play a larger role.

One nuance worth noting: the 10% unemployment rate for UK computing graduates at 15 months is not representative of the full picture. HESA data captures a snapshot early in careers when some computing graduates are still completing postgraduate study, awaiting security clearances, or seeking roles that match their specialism — factors that inflate short-term unemployment figures for this group. By three to five years post-graduation, computing and engineering graduates show among the strongest employment and earnings trajectories of any field. See the wider discussion of higher education statistics and trends 2026 for additional context on sector-level labour market dynamics.

Postgraduate ROI: Is a Master’s or PhD Worth It?

The decision to pursue postgraduate study carries a direct cost — tuition, foregone earnings, and time — that makes the return on investment question central for prospective students. The data on postgrad ROI is broadly positive but highly field-dependent. Understanding the relationship between tuition costs and longer-term salary outcomes is important; the full picture on university tuition fees statistics by country in 2026 provides the cost side of that equation.

Earnings premium at master’s and doctoral level

• OECD average: Master’s and doctoral graduates earn 83% more than workers with only upper secondary education, compared with 39% more for bachelor’s graduates (OECD Education at a Glance 2025).
• US (BLS Education Pays 2024): Master’s degree holders earn a median of approximately $1,737 per week, versus $1,493 for bachelor’s holders — roughly $12,700 more per year, or an estimated $400,000 more over a full working career.
• UK (LEO 2022/23): Postgraduates earn a median of £47,000 versus £42,000 for first-degree holders in the years after graduation. Postgraduates are in high-skilled employment at a rate of 79%, compared with 67.9% for first-degree graduates.
• US master’s ROI by field: The premium over a bachelor’s degree ranges from 39% more for business (MBA) to approximately 2.4% more in mathematics and statistics — illustrating that master’s ROI is far from uniform.

Worked example: payback period for a UK master’s degree

The payback period question — how long before the salary premium covers the cost of the degree — is the most concrete way to evaluate postgraduate ROI for a specific student. Consider a UK student completing a one-year taught master’s in a social science discipline in 2026:

• Tuition cost: £12,000–£15,000 (typical UK master’s tuition for home students, 2025/26)
• Foregone earnings during study: approximately £28,500 (median bachelor’s graduate salary per HESA 2022/23, forgone for one year)
• Total investment: approximately £40,500–£43,500
• Annual salary premium post-graduation: £47,000 − £42,000 = £5,000 per year (UK LEO 2022/23, five or more years post-graduation)
• Simple payback period: £42,000 / £5,000 = approximately 8–9 years to break even on the total investment

This calculation is deliberately conservative — it uses the median bachelor’s-versus-postgraduate salary gap rather than field-specific figures, and ignores interest on any student loan. In high-premium fields such as finance, law, and engineering, where a master’s confers a salary step-up of £8,000–£15,000 or more annually, the payback period compresses to 3–5 years. In lower-premium fields, it extends beyond ten years. The payback calculation is a useful decision tool, but only when applied with field-specific data rather than OECD-average figures.

Korean students researching how a master’s degree affects career outcomes in Korea can find employment and salary statistics specific to Korean graduate programmes in the Korean-language guide to master’s degree job prospects.

Time to employment

HESA measures employment at 15 months post-graduation rather than immediately, which provides a more stable picture than surveys conducted weeks after graduation. At that 15-month mark, 82% of UK graduates are in some form of employment. Longitudinal Australian data from QILT shows that the graduate employment rate continues to rise substantially in the three years after graduation, reaching 91.7% for domestic undergraduates by year three.

Academics considering their options for thesis writing during postgraduate study can explore how AI in academic writing statistics 2026 reflects changing workflows in postgraduate research — and how tools like Tesify support the process of producing the thesis that precedes those graduate outcomes.

Country Comparison Table

Methodological differences make direct comparisons across rows difficult. The UK figure measures a snapshot 15 months post-graduation; the Australian short-term rate is taken at 4–6 months when many graduates are still job-seeking; and the OECD employment rates reflect the full 25–64 age cohort, not recent graduates. For context on how international student flows shape the pool of graduates entering these labour markets, the data on international student statistics for 2026 illustrates how mobility patterns have been transformed by recent policy changes in the UK and Canada.

Frequently Asked Questions