THEY toil for years, sometimes in splendid isolation, forsaking material comforts and social contact, but once they’re done, What Do PhDs Do?, a new report asks.
More than half of PhD graduates find employment outside the higher education sector, the paper finds. And two fifths of PhD students move out of the area in which they studied, often to London or the South West, with about 8 per cent moving overseas.
“Although PhD graduates are a small cohort compared with first-degree graduates, they have the potential to make differences to a region,” says Dr Janet Metcalfe, the director of the UK GRAD programme, the body that did the research.
UK GRAD hopes that the findings could be used to stimulate local economies.
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