All UK regions benefit greatly from a skilled and educated workforce and in these challenging times of greater mobility it is the task of the universities, local authorities and local employers to capture as much local regional talent as is possible. There are usually two strands to this: the talent that originated from a particular region and the talent that moved into the region to study and gain their skills.
Interesting recent research (Higher Education Career Services) has revealed that the majority of graduates start work in their first job within their local area. This group consisted of 45.9% who undertook their studies locally and 24.7% who studied away from home and returned to their local region for their first job. This 24.7% was heavily represented by graduates from the East, South East and West Midlands
The second group represented 11.5% of graduates who moved away from their local region and remained there for their first job. The research revealed that this group consisted mainly of Health and Media professionals under the age of 24. The graduates from Yorkshire and Humber, East Midlands, South West and North East formed a large proportion of this workforce.
The third group represented by 18% of graduates started their first job in an area where they had neither studied nor lived. It has been found that this group was well represented by graduates of business, finance, Marketing, Engineering and the Sciences and the closer to London the region is then the harder it is to retain the talent locally. This means that the East Midlands and South East had the lowest regional retention rates whilst the North West, North West, Wales Scotland and Ireland had the best retention rate.
All regions except Northern Ireland revealed that those students who stayed in a region after graduation were more likely to have originated from that region.
Steve Blythe (Recruitment and Social Media Commentator).