Problems with the supply of highly skilled STEM workers have been reported by employers and governments for many decades, in the UK, the USA, and elsewhere. This paper presents some key findings from a project funded by the Nuffield Foundation that examined patterns of education and employment among STEM graduates in the UK. Five large-scale secondary data sets-comprising administrative, survey, cross-sectional and longitudinal data-were analysed in order to provide the most comprehensive account possible. The findings suggest that there is no overall shortage of STEM graduates but there is considerable variation in the career outcomes and trajectories of different groups. Recruitment to STEM degrees has stalled over the past 20 years but most STEM graduates never work in highly skilled STEM jobs-in any case, the majority of professional STEM workers do not have (or presumably need) degrees. Some groups of STEM graduates are currently under-represented in the highly-skilled STEM workforce and increased recruitment from these groups could grow the numbers entering STEM occupations. However, employers may have to modify their views on exactly what constitutes a valuable or desirable employee and to what extent it is their responsibility to train their workers. Introduction This paper provides a summary of the findings from a series of recent research projects looking at the educational and employment trajectories of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) graduates in the United Kingdom. These findings represent the most complete account yet of participation along the UK STEM pipeline. The analyses used existing data on hundreds of thousands of individuals, from several different sources. By using both longitudinal and cross-sectional datasets we were able to examine patterns of participation in STEM education and careers across the life course: from university, to early employment and through to later life careers.

This paper contributes to the empirical evidence on participation and attainment in higher education by reviewing the patterns of entry and success of undergraduate students. It examines the characteristics of entrants to different subjects and considers the role that subject studied plays in determining the likelihood of graduating with a 'good' degree. The data used were drawn from the administrative records of over 38,000 UK-domiciled undergraduate students from one 'elite' British university. Despite considerable betweensubject variation in degree outcomes, multivariate analysis of the relationship between students' social and academic characteristics and achievement at university revealed that, once social background and prior attainment had been controlled for, the subject students studied added little explanatory power to models predicting final degree classifications.Differences in degree outcome were most strongly related to attainment on entry to higher education, sex and ethnicity. In contrast with attainment during the earlier phases of education, the relationship with occupational class was relatively weak. Disparities between the proportion of higher level classifications awarded in different subjects can be largely explained by the background characteristics of the students who choose (and are accepted) to study on these degrees. This finding has particular implications for policies aimed at increasing both the number and quality of STEM graduates in what is often argued to be a 'shortage' or 'priority' area.

This paper examines the role that social characteristics play in determining the academic success of students who begin university with roughly similar entry grades. The data used were drawn from the administrative records of over 38,000 UK-domiciled undergraduate students from one British university between 1998 and 2009. Results show that the characteristics of entrants have varied only slightly over this period and intake is still largely in favour of 'traditional' entrants: namely those from professional occupational backgrounds, the privately educated and those of traditional age. The relationship between background characteristics and eventual academic success also reflect patterns seen at earlier education stages. However, when prior attainment was taken into account, the link between degree outcome and many social characteristics does diminish -notably for students who were privately educated and who came from professional occupational groups. This suggests that once students have overcome barriers to admission; it is entry grades rather than social characteristics that may most strongly influence eventual academic success.2

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