WEEKEND READING: We’re collecting graduate voice data – but are we really listening?

This blog was kindly authored by Claire Toogood, Research and Strategic Projects Manager at Graduate Futures, and Emerita Professor Jackie Carter.

Last year on this site, Claire considered the complexity of student identities and outcomes. Now, Graduate Futures Institute’s 2026 What Happens Next? report brings a fresh perspective on this topic. It looks beyond simple metrics of whether disabled graduates who complete the Graduate Outcomes Survey (GOS) are in work 15 months after graduation, and instead explores whether their transitions deliver meaningful outcomes that use their skills and fit their ambitions.

Some of what we need is already in the data. The Graduate Outcomes Survey asks three “graduate voice” questions:

1. whether a graduate’s current activity feels meaningful;
2. whether they are utilising the learning from their studies; and
3. whether their activity fits with their future plans. 

While rarely headline-grabbing, graduate voice can highlight poor-fit transitions, underemployment and stalled progression, especially for graduates who face structural barriers.

Crucially, those barriers are not best understood as individual deficits. The patterns in outcomes and graduate voice point to continued structural and systemic issues which predictably produce disadvantage in recruitment, workplace adjustment, progression and job quality for disabled graduates.

The headline gap is still there – graduate voice tells us what’s missing

The report finds a persistent employment gap 15 months after graduation: disabled graduates report 79% total employment (compared to 83% for graduates with no known disability), and 7% unemployment (compared with 5%).

But focusing only on headline numbers risks overlooking the lived experience of graduate transition and where it breaks down. Graduate voice adds that missing dimension. Across all three measures, disabled graduates are consistently slightly less likely than graduates with no known disability to agree that their activity is meaningful, utilising their learning, or aligned with future plans. In other words, even where employment rates look alike, the quality and fit of outcomes diverge, and that is where longer-term exclusion can begin.

As Jackie considers in the report foreword, we are in a time of profound change and pressure, both for higher education and the UK as a whole. 24% of the UK working age population is disabled; equity of outcomes for disabled graduates is not a marginal matter, it is a crucial component of a sustainable UK workforce.

Where outcomes and voice together show systemic issues

Over the last two years, What Happens Next? has evolved to incorporate intersectional analysis. That combined lens makes one thing unambiguous: disabled graduates are not a single group. Outcomes vary by type of disability, ethnicity and gender identity, and graduate voice helps pinpoint where the transition is most precarious.

• Autistic graduates have the lowest total employment (72%) and higher unemployment (12%) than any other statistically significant group. They also report less favourable responses across the three graduate voice responses. This points to reduced access to employment and a higher likelihood of landing in roles that don’t fit, don’t use skills, and don’t support progression. Our wider qualitative research has continued to explore the distinct and compounding recruitment and workplace adjustment barriers experienced by neurodivergent and autistic students and graduates.

• When outcomes are grouped by ethnicity, disabled White graduates report higher total employment and lower unemployment than disabled graduates from any other ethnic background. If our analysis stops at disability alone, we risk designing inclusive employability around the experiences of those who might not experience intersectional challenges, inadvertently widening gaps for those facing multiple disadvantages.
• Disabled graduates whose gender identity is not the same as at birth show a markedly different pattern: 39% full-time employment, 20% part-time employment, and 10% unemployment alongside consistently less favourable graduate voice responses across all three questions. This is a group that can be hidden by aggregated metrics due to small numbers.

We need to act, not just collect

When graduate voice is reduced to a paragraph in a report or a slide in a committee pack, that’s not listening. Listening would mean using graduate voice to answer design questions that matter:

• Where are disabled graduates most likely to report poor fit, and what’s happening in the transition between course, careers support, and employment?
• Which groups are least likely to report meaningful work, utilising their learning and career alignment, and what does this tell us?
• Where do voice measures flag underemployment that employment status alone cannot highlight?

The report also shows small-but-persistent differences in employment quality: disabled graduates are slightly less likely to be in highly skilled employment (74% vs 78%) and marginally less likely to report permanent/open-ended contracts than graduates with no known disability. Graduates with no known disability are also more likely to say their role fitted their career plan (45% vs 41%). Graduate voice is the bridge that helps those in higher education interpret these patterns and respond early, before short-term mismatch becomes long-term exclusion.

Listening to graduate voice in practice

The report’s recommendations are clear: target support where gaps are widest, embed intersectionality, strengthen data and accountability, and embed graduate voice in policy and practice. While this will vary by institution, we suggest a few starting points:

• Make graduate voice part of your outcomes dashboard. Bring the three voice measures alongside employment and employment-quality indicators, segmented by type of disability and intersecting characteristics, so course teams, careers leaders and EDI leads can see where transitions are breaking down.
• Target transition support on the systems that shape outcomes. Focus on recruitment processes, disclosure and adjustments, and workplace onboarding, especially where outcomes and voice both signal systemic misalignment.
• Co-design support with disabled students and graduates. Apply culturally competent and gender-inclusive practice; outcome differences by ethnicity and gender identity suggest that generic provision may inadvertently widen gaps.
• Everyone is accountable. This is an institutional outcomes issue, not solely a careers service issue. Improve pathways to share disability, evaluate which interventions close gaps, and establish visible senior ownership of the disabled graduate transition.

Graduate voice is the bridge between being in work and being in good work. Listening properly means using the insight we already collect to redesign the transition so disabled graduates aren’t simply entering the labour market, but thriving within it.