Twenty years ago, we lacked comprehensive data on learner employability and faced limited funding to assess its effectiveness. However, in 2024 we possess market insights, national data and institutional backing demonstrating our learners’ post-classroom employment prospects. The data goes someway to confirm our ‘excellent’ employability support, but there are consistent issues for our learners’ employability. These issues are known by our careers practitioners but are not explicit in the published research yet. This article advocates for increased funding and support to recognise marginalised learners, particularly those with specific needs not fully reflected in existing datasets. Groups covered in this post include disabled graduates, mature graduates, graduates with neurodiversity and graduates serving as carers.

The disability employment gap, especially evident among autistic graduates, endured beyond the Covid-19 pandemic. Recent research from the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS; Toogood, 2024) reveals that despite an overall increase in graduate employment rates following the pandemic, the gap for disabled graduates persisted. They were less likely to secure highly skilled employment or utilise their qualifications. Autistic graduates from both first degree and postgraduate taught courses undertake higher rates of part-time employment, and also have the highest unemployment rate of any other group. From Graduate Outcomes Survey data for both 2019/20 and 2020/21, autistic graduates and also graduates with mental health conditions were within the groups least likely to report taking a job because it aligned to their career plans, evidencing a need for further support. Indeed, in a partnership report alongside the AGCAS research, the Shaw Trust (2024) articulates the ways in which higher education institutions, and particularly careers services, can make additional adjustments to support disabled graduates. This is not solely a UK issue, as in the United States there are also evolving service designs and practices in support of disabled learners (Madaus & Dukes, 2023).

‘Mature learners, entering education with diverse backgrounds and goals, present unique pathways to employability compared to traditional learners’

Mature learners, entering education with diverse backgrounds and goals, present unique pathways to employability compared to traditional learners (Lavender, 2020). Their experiences may include concurrent work and study, employer-sponsored scholarships or post-retirement pursuit of knowledge (Woodfield, 2011). Currently, there are no standardised metrics to gauge the employability of mature learners, underscoring the necessity to capture their needs and aspirations, especially with the impending release of Lifelong Learning Entitlement funds in 2025 (House of Commons, 2024).

Practical, work-based learning is a powerful teaching and learning tool for learners with neurodiversity (Clouder et al., 2020). Therefore, the pedagogy for neurodiverse learners naturally tallies to developing the lifelong learning skills required for successful employment. This alignment is rarely accepted and even rarely celebrated for neurodiverse learners.

Supporting the employability and transition to the world of work for learner carers is complex. With no national data available on the number of carers in UK higher education due to underreporting, accessing and supporting this population remains difficult. The Carers Trust (2015) identifies these longitudinal touchpoints for support from access through to progression, and from a regulatory standpoint the learner outcomes of carers can’t be ignored as they are a group, among others, that the Office for Learners identifies for particular attention as part of any institutional access and participation plan.

While we, as educators in universities, do not like the grouping of learners to probe and prod according to markers that may have no bearing on the brilliance of the individual learner, this blog post seeks to identify some of the difficulties groups of learners may face in their graduate employability. Using the groupings, we have identified gaps in existing research and knowledge for mature, disabled, neurodiverse and home carer learners in higher education. Their motivations for study are different. The pedagogy to enable their development is different. So we must look to address the support for their employability by capturing their data pre and post studies.

References

Carers Trust. (2015). Supporting learners with caring responsibilities: Ideas and practice for universities to help learner carers. https://carers.org/resources/all-resources/13-supporting-higher-education-students-with-caring-responsibilities

Clouder, L., Karakus, M., Cinotti, A., Ferreyra, M. V., Fierros, G. A., & Rojo, P. (2020). Neurodiversity in higher education: A narrative synthesis. Higher Education, 80(4), 757–778.

House of Commons. (2024, March 12). The Lifelong Learning Entitlement [Research briefing]. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9756/

Lavender, K. (2020). Mature students’ experiences of undertaking higher education in English vocational institutions: Employability and academic capital. International Journal of Training Research, 18(2), 141–154.

Madaus, J. W., & Dukes, L. L. (Eds.). (2023). Handbook of higher education and disability. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Shaw Trust. (2024). The disability employment gap for graduates. https://www.shawtrust.org.uk/shaw-trust-in-partnership-with-agcas/

Toogood, C. (2024). What happens next in challenging times? A report on the outcomes of disabled graduates during 2020 and 2021. https://www.agcas.org.uk/write/MediaUploads/Resources/WHN/WhatHappensNextinChallengingTimes.pdf

Woodfield, R. (2011). Age and first destination employment from UK universities: Are mature learners disadvantaged? Studies in Higher Education, 36(4), 409–425.