The project aimed to research the education-to-work trajectories of higher education graduates in the UK, with a particular focus on the impact of socio-economic differences.

The project was organised into three main strands, which explored: SES gradients in higher education study trajectories; widening participation in ‘better graduate jobs’; and widening participation outliers, asking what makes the exceptions exceptional?

The main data source for the research is the Longitudinal Destination of Leavers of Higher Education survey (DLHE) collected by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). The unique student identifier used in the design of the survey allows data linkage with student administrative data, also collected by HESA, as well as data from the National Pupil Database (NPD).

In order to obtain information on job characteristics other than those covered by DLHE and HESA data and to explore alternative measures of job quality (skill use, skill requirements, work autonomy and flexibility/security), the project also uses different datasets containing characteristics of jobs in specific sectors (2 digit level) and occupations (1 digit level), including; the European Working Conditions Survey (combined survey rounds from 2010 and 2015); the UK Workplace Employment Relations Survey from 2011; and the PIAAC UK data set from 2015.

In pooling these rich data sources, this project reconstructs full pre-tertiary education journeys and achievements, and higher education paths and early careers of a substantial sample of graduates, creating a unique retrospective biographical survey.