DLHE Information for International Graduates

What are these reports?

The Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) is an annual survey of all students graduating from UK universities. The survey is carried out for both post-graduates and undergraduates and forms a snapshot of what people are doing six months after their course finishes. The reports provided on this site provide some insights into the information collected about international students who chose to study in the UK.

Why can’t I see how many students went to work for Company X?

Both the Data Protection Act and the rules about collecting and publishing DLHE data mean that no information can be published which might compromise the privacy of any graduates. As you can see from the reports, graduates went to work for a huge range of companies and some only employed very small numbers. Rather than not display any information at all about the range of organizations international graduates work for, we decided to list just the names of those companies.

How many students have been surveyed?

Currently, universities do not consistently collect DLHE information for international students. Some universities choose not to collect it at all, though this is changing. The data here is an aggregation of two years of data collected from various institutions belonging to the University of London. Statistically, it should be viewed as a sample providing interesting information about the range and variety of international student destinations rather than an authoritative census.

Information about the individual reports

Reports can be filtered to display information about undergraduate or postgraduate destinations or both.

Employment geography looks at the different regions graduates have work in - home country, different parts of the UK or other continents.

Source for finding jobs looks at the different ways graduates have found work. You might like to note the importance of networking - on average, more students gave ‘personal contacts’ as the answer to the question “How did you find your job?” than any other method. ‘Already worked there’ was second, highlighting the importance of their degrees as a path for career development in an existing role or career path.

Destinations for international students six months after graduating provides an overview of what graduates went on to do. The vast majority are in employment or further study.

Size of employer suggests that whilst most students go to work for comparatively large companies, many work for smaller SMES (1-49 employees).

Top employers is a simple report listing the top employers of international students. Because the data focuses on London graduates, there is a correspondingly high number of graduates working for the NHS. The entries for Kings and UCL also largely refer to graduates working for the hospitals and medical schools based at those colleges.

Top jobs for overseas graduates lists the roles that most graduates find work in. For the same reasons as outlined in ‘Why can’t I see how many students went to work for Company X?’, we are unable to provide numbers of graduates for each role or to cross-reference them against the Top employers.