IER research featured at British Academy Roundtable on ‘good jobs’ and graduate outcomes

On 14 September, Dr Sangwoo Lee presented at an expert roundtable hosted by the British Academy at Carlton House Terrace in London.

Chaired by Professor Sir Richard Blundell (UCL/IFS), the session brought together leading researchers, sector representatives, and policymakers, including attendees from the Department for Education, Skills England, the Office for Students, the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)/Jisc, TASO, and the Resolution Foundation, to examine what constitutes a “good graduate outcome” and explore how policy can better capture the nuances of the graduate labour market.

Presenting in the session on Measuring Job Quality, Dr Lee shared findings from his recent research on multidimensional graduate job quality premiums across the UK and Europe. His presentation argued that conventional evaluative metrics, which rely heavily on gross earnings and standard employment status, fail to capture the realities of modern graduate employment.

In today’s labour market, graduates increasingly weigh trade-offs between tangible financial returns and intangible workplace benefits, including task autonomy, working conditions, career development, and intrinsic meaning.

Dr Lee proposed embedding a rigorous, multidimensional job quality framework into official graduate outcome evaluations to offer a more holistic definition of "good work."

The presentation contributed to an engaging discussion alongside presentations from Imran Tahir (Institute for Fiscal Studies) and Tej Nathwani (HESA/Jisc), addressing how existing survey measures and administrative datasets might be developed to track job quality across UK regions and sectors.

IER was also represented at the roundtable by Professor Peter Elias and Gabriel Atfield, contributing to discussions on skills, regional inequality, and the future data infrastructure needed to assess fair and sustainable work across the UK.