HESA published its latest Graduate Outcomes statistics on 4 June 2026, covering graduates of 2023/24, and the picture is a steady, encouraging one for the wider education sector. Over one million graduates were surveyed, 353,755 responded, and 87% were in work or further study, as the annual results hub confirms. Median full-time salaries rose to 30,000 pounds from 28,500 pounds a year earlier. For leaders responsible for employer partnerships and graduate recruitment, this is solid, independent evidence to build commercial conversations around in the year ahead.

The results reward institutions that put outcomes at the centre of their employer story. Three themes stand out: the labour market graduates enter is stable and skilled, pay is moving in the right direction, and graduates themselves report that their work is meaningful and draws on what they studied. Each gives higher education teams something concrete, positive and credible to bring to industry partners, all drawn from accredited official statistics.

Stability and skill level come first. Full-time employment was 57%, a marginal move from 59% the previous year, while a further 25% were in other forms of employment, including combining work and study. Among graduates working in the UK, 75% held high-skilled roles, rising to 81% for science graduates and 69% for non-science graduates, a healthy base with clear room to grow across every discipline.

Pay and purpose reinforce the picture clearly. Beyond the rise in median salary, medicine and dentistry graduates earned the highest median at 43,749 pounds, and 85% of graduates agreed their current activity is meaningful. Some 68% said they were using what they learnt while studying, a direct measure of student success that institutions can track, discuss openly and steadily improve alongside employers who value graduate talent.

The Irish experience offers a useful parallel for Irish higher education leaders. The Higher Education Authority has run its Graduate Outcomes Survey annually since 1982, reaching graduates nine months after graduation, published its class of 2024 results in November 2025, and introduces a revised survey instrument in 2026. The timing differs from HESA's fifteen-month approach, so figures should not be compared directly, but both systems show a sector investing seriously in outcome evidence.

Three actions follow for institutional leadership. First, use provider-level data from HESA's open repository to benchmark your own outcomes and lead employer conversations with them. Second, treat the gap between science and non-science high-skilled employment as an opportunity, building employer placements and skills-mapping into non-science programmes to lift results. Third, work with employers on the 68% of graduates using what they learnt, aligning curriculum and careers services so that figure keeps rising year after year, to the benefit of students, institutions and employers alike.

Graduate outcomes are becoming one of the most persuasive commercial assets in the education sector across the UK and Ireland. Educational leadership that embraces this evidence now, and shares it confidently with employers, is well placed to turn steady results into stronger partnerships, richer placement pipelines, deeper industry relationships and a clear reputation for education excellence.