Graduate outcomes: Australia vs UK — what changed in 2025/26?

Graduate outcomes: Australia vs UK — what changed in 2025/26?

What happens after graduation is increasingly central to the value proposition of international education. For students choosing between destinations such as Australia and the UK, graduate outcomes can provide an indication of how successfully an overseas qualification translates into employment once they return home. The question is increasingly straightforward: will this qualification help me find work?

Graduate outcomes also offer universities, employers and policymakers a way to track how the graduate labour market is changing, and provide a useful lens through which to assess the longer-term value and competitiveness of higher education in both destinations.

With a new year of data available, we revisit the performance of graduates from both countries and examine how outcomes have shifted. Rather than a simple Australia-versus-UK comparison, our latest figures highlights something interesting. While Australia has historically recorded stronger graduate employability, the latest cohort shows that the UK is now moving ahead. And more strikingly, employability has fallen substantially across both destinations over the longer term.