This bulletin is the annual first release of HESA student data. It covers data about higher education students and qualifiers from the following types of providers within the UK: Higher education (HE) providers in England registered with the Office for Students (OfS) in the Approved (fee cap) or Approved categories; Publicly funded HE providers in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland; and Further education (FE) colleges in Wales. These providers submit data to HESA via either the Student record or the Student alternative record. This is the third year that data from both records have been combined together in the figures within this release to provide a more complete picture of higher education within the UK. Further details on coverage can be seen in the notes section of this release. This bulletin also includes information from the HESA Aggregate Offshore record and can be seen in Figure 12. This separate record counts students studying wholly outside the UK who are either registered with the reporting HE provider or who are studying for an award of the reporting HE provider.

This release includes more detail on higher education students than was published in the student statistics bulletin in January 2022.

This release is the annual first release of Graduate Outcomes survey data and covers UK higher education providers (HEPs) and further education colleges (FECs) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Data is collected approximately 15 months after HE course completion. Following an assessment from the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR), the Graduate Outcomes data publication has been awarded official statistics accreditation. Please see the Graduate Outcomes data awarded official statistics accreditation and OSR report for more detail. This bulletin has been produced by Jisc in collaboration with statisticians from the Department for Education, the Office for Students, the Welsh Government, the Scottish Government and the Department for the Economy Northern Ireland. It has been released according to the arrangements approved by the UK Statistics Authority.

This bulletin provides details of staff employment at UK higher education (HE) providers on 1 December 2019. Detailed analysis of the HESA staff record will be available in the Higher Education Staff Data, 2019/20 open dataset due to be released on 25 February 2021. Note that data in this release does not reflect any impact on staff numbers due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Further details can be seen in the notes section of this release.

From 2019/20, it is not mandatory for HE providers in England and Northern Ireland to return information about non-academic staff. Further details on coverage changes can be seen in the notes. We advise caution in interpreting this data.

This bulletin provides details of staff employment at UK higher education (HE) providers on 1 December 2021. Detailed analysis of the HESA staff record is available in the Higher Education Staff Open Data, released on 21 February 2023. This bulletin has been produced by Jisc in collaboration with statisticians from the Department for Education, the Office for Students, the Welsh Government, the Scottish Government and the Department for the Economy Northern Ireland. It has been released according to the arrangements approved by the UK Statistics Authority.

Higher Education Graduate Outcomes Statistics: UK, 2020/21 This Statistical Bulletin is the annual first release of Graduate Outcomes survey data. These experimental statistics cover UK higher education providers (HEPs) including alternative providers (APs) and further education colleges (FECs) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Data is collected approximately 15 months after HE course completion. The 2020/21 Graduate Outcomes cohort finished their qualifications in the second academic year affected by COVID-19. While Cohort A finished their qualifications during late summer and early autumn 2020, in a period of relatively loose restrictions, restrictions began to increase over the course of the academic year. Cohort B graduated into a period of short national lockdowns, followed by the start of the second national lockdown in January 2021. Cohort C likewise graduated in lockdown, but the progress of the vaccination programme led to a gradual easing of restrictions as spring progressed; by the time Cohort D, the largest Graduate Outcomes cohort, began to finish their qualifications in May 2021, most adults had been offered a first vaccine dose, and restrictions were gradually being phased out across the UK. The circumstances under which 2020/21 graduates were surveyed were quite different. As surveying for Cohort A opened in December 2021, Omicron variant cases were rising and new guidance was being issued requiring masks in indoor spaces and encouraging people to work from home where possible, the new restrictions were considerably more lenient than those which were introduced a year previously. By the time the Cohort B survey period opened in March 2022, all legal restrictions had been lifted in England, and remaining restrictions were phased out in other nations over the next few months. Although COVID cases rose from the start of June to a summer peak in early July, no legal restrictions were in place during the survey periods for Cohorts C and D. An insight briefing provides further detail on analysis undertaken to explore the impact of the pandemic, and the conclusions identified. This statistical bulletin has been produced by HESA in collaboration with statisticians from the Office for Students, the Department for Education, the Welsh Government, the Scottish Government and the Department for the Economy Northern Ireland. It has been released according to the arrangements approved by the UK Statistics Authority.

Description: This data provides a summary of the total number of graduates – both undergraduate and postgraduate from 2018 to 2020. The dashboard also provides a breakdown for all graduates and STEMM graduates. STEMM graduates are based on student who graduated from ‘Natural sciences, mathematics and statistics’, ‘Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)’, ‘Engineering, manufacturing and construction’, ‘Agriculture, forestry, fisheries and veterinary’ and ‘Health and welfare’ courses.The annual Key Facts & Figures dashboard from the HEA provides a thorough profile of the graduate population in higher education institutions. This data is available from the Higher Education Authority (HEA) Statistics Unit who are responsible for collecting, analysing and disseminating student and graduate data returned to the HEA from all HEA-funded institutions annually.Geography available in RDM: State, Regional Assembly, Strategic Planning Area (SPA) and Local Authority.Source: HEA Statistics UnitWeblink: https://hea.ie/statistics/data-for-download-and-visualisations/graduates/Date of last source data update: 2021Update Schedule: Annual update

This dataset provides Census 2021 estimates that classify usual residents aged 16 years and over in England and Wales by highest level of qualification and by sex. The estimates are as at Census Day, 21 March 2021.

There are quality considerations about higher education qualifications, including those at Level 4+, responses from older people and international migrants, and comparability with 2011 Census data. Read more about this quality notice.

Area type

Census 2021 statistics are published for a number of different geographies. These can be large, for example the whole of England, or small, for example an output area (OA), the lowest level of geography for which statistics are produced.

For higher levels of geography, more detailed statistics can be produced. When a lower level of geography is used, such as output areas (which have a minimum of 100 persons), the statistics produced have less detail. This is to protect the confidentiality of people and ensure that individuals or their characteristics cannot be identified.

Lower tier local authorities

Lower tier local authorities provide a range of local services. There are 309 lower tier local authorities in England made up of 181 non-metropolitan districts, 59 unitary authorities, 36 metropolitan districts and 33 London boroughs (including City of London). In Wales there are 22 local authorities made up of 22 unitary authorities.

Coverage

Census 2021 statistics are published for the whole of England and Wales. However, you can choose to filter areas by:

• country - for example, Wales
• region - for example, London
• local authority - for example, Cornwall
• health area – for example, Clinical Commissioning Group
• statistical area - for example, MSOA or LSOA

Highest level of qualification

The highest level of qualification is derived from the question asking people to indicate all qualifications held, or their nearest equivalent.

This may include foreign qualifications where they were matched to the closest UK equivalent.

Sex

This is the sex recorded by the person completing the census. The options were “Female” and “Male”.

Students from the Chinese ethnic group had the highest entry rate into higher education in every year from 2006 to 2024.

This release includes more detail on the higher education workforce than was published in the staff statistics bulletin on 1st February 2022.

Office for National Statistics (ONS) Annual Population Survey (APS) data showing percentages in the aged 25-29 population qualified to Level 4 and above.

This dataset provides Census 2021 estimates that classify usual residents aged 16 years and over in England and Wales by their highest level of qualification. The estimates are as at Census Day, 21 March 2021.

There are quality considerations about higher education qualifications, including those at Level 4+, responses from older people and international migrants, and comparability with 2011 Census data.

Read more about this quality notice.

Area type

Census 2021 statistics are published for a number of different geographies. These can be large, for example the whole of England, or small, for example an output area (OA), the lowest level of geography for which statistics are produced.

For higher levels of geography, more detailed statistics can be produced. When a lower level of geography is used, such as output areas (which have a minimum of 100 persons), the statistics produced have less detail. This is to protect the confidentiality of people and ensure that individuals or their characteristics cannot be identified.

Lower Tier Local Authorities

Lower tier local authorities provide a range of local services. In England there are 309 lower tier local authorities. These are made up of non-metropolitan districts (181), unitary authorities (59), metropolitan districts (36) and London boroughs (33, including City of London). In Wales there are 22 local authorities made up of 22 unitary authorities. Of these local authority types, only non-metropolitan districts are not additionally classified as upper tier local authorities.

Highest level of qualification (8 categories)

The highest level of qualification is derived from the question asking people to indicate all qualifications held, or their nearest equivalent.

This may include foreign qualifications where they were matched to the closest UK equivalent.

This dataset provides population estimates for the local authorities in Wales, the English regions and the UK countries for the period from 1991 onwards by sex and single year of age, together with some aggregated age groups. It should be noted that for mid-2020 there are some definitional changes (particularly affecting the migration components) compared with mid-2019 population estimates data and it is advised users read the Quality and Methodology Information section on the Office for National Statistics website. For Wales, England, and Northern Ireland, the mid-2021 population estimates are the first population estimates to be based on the 2021 censuses for these countries. For Scotland, the census was moved to 2022. The mid-2022 population estimates are the first population estimates to be based on the 2022 Census for Scotland. Internal migration estimates for mid-2023 have been produced using a different method to previous years, following a change to the variables available in the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data. This material is Crown Copyright and may be re-used (not including logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence.

This Zenodo entry includes the full data files (.csv and .xlsx) for Figure 3: Percentages of women in the non-atypical academic workforce in a subset of higher education institutions in the United Kingdom by institutional groupings, 2021', included in the manuscript "The Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative: Sharing data on scholarly research performance", authored by members of the Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative (COKI). The analysis is of publicly available data sourced from the United Kingdom Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA).

DescriptionHeadline statistics for LEO: Graduate and postgraduate outcomes publicationCoverageHeadline employment and earnings outcomes for UK domiciled graduates and postgraduates of English Higher Education (HE) providers, five years after graduation (YAG), 2020/21 tax year.File formats and conventionsFormatFiles are Comma Separated Value (CSV)ConventionsEarnings figures are rounded to the nearest £100Employment outcome percentages are rounded to the nearest 0.1%

This dataset provides Census 2021 estimates that classify usual residents aged 16 years and over in England and Wales by highest level of qualification and by economic activity status. The estimates are as at Census Day, 21 March 2021.

There are quality considerations about higher education qualifications, including those at Level 4+, responses from older people and international migrants, and comparability with 2011 Census data. Read more about this quality notice.

As Census 2021 was during a unique period of rapid change, take care when using this data for planning purposes. Read more about this quality notice.

Area type

Census 2021 statistics are published for a number of different geographies. These can be large, for example the whole of England, or small, for example an output area (OA), the lowest level of geography for which statistics are produced.

For higher levels of geography, more detailed statistics can be produced. When a lower level of geography is used, such as output areas (which have a minimum of 100 persons), the statistics produced have less detail. This is to protect the confidentiality of people and ensure that individuals or their characteristics cannot be identified.

Lower tier local authorities

Lower tier local authorities provide a range of local services. There are 309 lower tier local authorities in England made up of 181 non-metropolitan districts, 59 unitary authorities, 36 metropolitan districts and 33 London boroughs (including City of London). In Wales there are 22 local authorities made up of 22 unitary authorities.

Coverage

Census 2021 statistics are published for the whole of England and Wales. However, you can choose to filter areas by:

• country - for example, Wales
• region - for example, London
• local authority - for example, Cornwall
• health area – for example, Clinical Commissioning Group
• statistical area - for example, MSOA or LSOA

Highest level of qualification

The highest level of qualification is derived from the question asking people to indicate all qualifications held, or their nearest equivalent.

This may include foreign qualifications where they were matched to the closest UK equivalent.

Economic activity status

People aged 16 years and over are economically active if, between 15 March and 21 March 2021, they were:

• in employment (an employee or self-employed)
• unemployed, but looking for work and could start within two weeks
• unemployed, but waiting to start a job that had been offered and accepted

It is a measure of whether or not a person was an active participant in the labour market during this period. Economically inactive are those aged 16 years and over who did not have a job between 15 March to 21 March 2021 and had not looked for work between 22 February to 21 March 2021 or could not start work within two weeks.

The census definition differs from International Labour Organization definition used on the Labour Force Survey, so estimates are not directly comparable.

This classification splits out full-time students from those who are not full-time students when they are employed or unemployed. It is recommended to sum these together to look at all of those in employment or unemployed, or to use the four category labour market classification, if you want to look at all those with a particular labour market status.

This dataset provides Census 2021 estimates that classify all usual residents aged 5 years and over in England and Wales with a schoolchild/student indicator. The estimates are as at Census Day, 21 March 2021.

Schoolchild or full-time student indicator (3 categories)

Indicates whether a person aged 5 years and over was in full-time education on Census Day, 21 March 2021. This includes schoolchildren and adults in full-time education.

Schoolchildren and students in full-time education studying away from home are treated as usually resident at their term-time address.

Area type

Census 2021 statistics are published for a number of different geographies. These can be large, for example the whole of England, or small, for example an output area (OA), the lowest level of geography for which statistics are produced.

For higher levels of geography, more detailed statistics can be produced. When a lower level of geography is used, such as output areas (which have a minimum of 100 persons), the statistics produced have less detail. This is to protect the confidentiality of people and ensure that individuals or their characteristics cannot be identified.

Coverage

Census 2021 statistics are published for the whole of England and Wales. However, you can choose to filter areas by:

country - for example, Wales region - for example, London local authority - for example, Cornwall health area – for example, Clinical Commissioning Group statistical area - for example, MSOA or LSOA

Lower Tier Local Authorities

Lower tier local authorities provide a range of local services. In England there are 309 lower tier local authorities. These are made up of non-metropolitan districts (181), unitary authorities (59), metropolitan districts (36) and London boroughs (33, including City of London). In Wales there are 22 local authorities made up of 22 unitary authorities. Of these local authority types, only non-metropolitan districts are not additionally classified as upper tier local authorities.

The Cyber Security Breaches Survey, 2021 (CSBS) was run to understand organisations' approaches and attitudes to cyber security, and to understand their experience of cyber security breaches, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the survey was to support the Government by providing evidence that can inform policies which help to make Britain a safer place to do business online. Details of changes for the 2021 survey can be found in the Technical Annex documentation.

These surveys have been conducted annually since 2016 to understand the views of UK organisations on cyber security. Data are collected on topics including online use; attitudes of organisations to cyber security and awareness of Government initiatives; approaches to cyber security (including investment and processes); incidences and impact of a cyber security breach or attack; and how breaches are dealt with by the organisation. This information helps to inform Government policy towards organisations, including how best to target key messages to businesses and charities so that they are cyber secure (and so that the UK is the safest place in the world to do business online). The study is funded by the DCMS as part of the National Cyber Security Programme.

The underlying data are useful for researchers to better understand the response across a range of organisations and for wider comparability over time. The survey originally only covered businesses but was expanded to include charities from the 2018 survey onwards. From 2020, the survey includes a sample of education institutions (primary and secondary schools, further and higher education). Please note that the UK Data Service only holds data from 2018 onwards.

Further information and additional publications can be found on the "http://GOV.UK" target="_blank"> GOV.UK Cyber Security Breaches Survey, 2021 webpage.