Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) from Universities: 2015-16: Scotland

Scotland and GB Comparison

Figure 2 shows a comparison of the distribution of annualised earnings of graduates from 2009-10 for Scottish and all GB HEIs five years after graduation. Overall, the annualised earnings median of graduates from Scottish HEIs was £27,100. This compares to £25,800 for GB HEIs (to note that subject studied has a large influence on earnings and this may account for the differences between Scotland and GB median earnings). More specifically, of the 23 subject areas, graduates of Scottish HEIs have higher median earnings in 10 of the subject areas compared to the median earnings for all GB HEIs.

Earnings of graduates also varied across subjects. For example, those who studied Medicine & Dentistry at Scottish HEIs had median earnings of £48,100 five years after graduation. In contrast, those who studied Creative Arts & Design at Scottish HEIs had median earnings of £19,700 five years after graduation.

Median earnings can vary between subject and institution for various reasons. See 'Data Quality' for some of the issues to consider when looking at this data.

Subjects are ordered from those with the highest median earnings to the lowest median earnings for Scotland. The boxes represent the inter-quartile range – the earnings of the middle 50 per cent of graduates in each subject will fall in the box.

Figure 2: Comparison of distributions of annualised earnings of graduates* for each subject area five year after graduation (lower quartile, median and upper quartile), Scotland ^[2] and GB, 2015/16

* UK domiciled First degree qualifiers 2009-10