Graduate Outcomes Survey: Sectors and Occupations
Focus on Sectors


This section provides details of the economic sectors graduates are working in, according to the Graduate Outcomes Survey.

As noted in the Introduction the broad level economic sectors as collected in the Graduate Outcomes Survey are given as follows:

  • Agriculture, forestry and fishing
  • Industry
  • Construction
  • Wholesale and retail trade
  • Transportation and storage
  • Accommodation and food service activities
  • Information and communication
  • Financial, insurance and real estate activities
  • Professional, scientific and technical activities
  • Administrative and support service activities
  • Public administration and defence
  • Education
  • Human health and social work activities
  • Other
  • I don’t know

The chart below displays graduates’ economic sectors of employment, and the reader can be select field of study, programme type and year.


Graduates work across a wide range of sectors of the economy:

  • Education and Human Health and Social Work Activities were the two most common sectors of employment each with 14% of all graduates.
  • This was followed by the Financial, Insurance and Real Estate Sector with 12% of graduates and Industry and Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities each with 11% of graduates.
    • These Graduate Outcomes Survey figures can be compared with overall CSO national figures which show that the largest employment sectors were Human Health and Social Work (14%), followed by Industry (12%), and Wholesale and Retail Trade (12%).
  • A total of 8% of graduates worked in the Information and Communication sector, followed by 4% of graduates working in Wholesale and Retail Trade.
  • The least common sectors of employment were Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing and Transportation and Storage both at 1% each.
  • A total of 7% of graduates worked in the Other sector.  This sector of the economy includes creative arts and entertainment, libraries, archives and museums, gambling and betting, sports and recreation, repair of goods, and domestic personnel, amongst others.

 

Programme Type

We consider different programme types in more detail here.

Honours Degree Graduates

  • The most common sectors for honours degree graduates were Human Health and Social Work Activities (15%) followed by Financial, Insurance and Real Estate (14%).
  • A total of 11% of graduates each worked in Education, Industry, Professional Scientific and Technical Activities.
  • The least common sectors were Public Administration and Defence and Transportation and Storage at 2% and 1% respectively.

Postgraduate Degree Graduates

  • For postgraduate degree gradates Education was the most common sector of employment with 19% employed in this sector.
    • The Education sector was also the most common sector among doctoral graduates with 43% employed here.
  • The next most common sectors were Professional, Scientific and Technical and Financial, Insurance and Real Estate (each 13%), Human Health and Social Work (12%), Industry (11%), and Information and Communication (10%).

Field of Study

We consider different Fields of Study in more detail here.

For Arts and Humanities graduates, the largest group selected Education (18%) followed by Other (15%), Information and Communication (13%) and Wholesale and Retail Trade (11%).

For Business, Administration and Law graduates, 31% were employed in the Financial, Insurance and Real Estate sector of the economy. This was followed by 10% each employed in the Industry and Porfessional, Scientific and Technical sectors.

90% of Education graduates were employed in the Education sector with 29% of Engineering, Manufacturing and Construction graduates employed in Industry.

For Health and Welfare graduates, 64% were employed within the Human, Health and Social Work Activities sector.

For Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Statistics graduates, 29% were employed in Industry.

For Services graduates, the largest sector of employment was Public Administration and Defence (18%), followed by Accommodation and Food Services Activities (16%) and Other (14%).

Graduates of Social Sciences, Journalism and Information were most commonly working in Human Health and Social Work Activities (18%), followed by Financial, Insurance and Real Estate Activities (14%).

The next section in this report provides more detail on graduates’ economic sectors of employment, further categorised by occupation type.