Student 'Quality of Life' survey

Loughborough came top of a new poll looking at the quality of student life at UK universities, with Bath second, followed by Durham, Newcastle and Glasgow. The second annual survey by Lloyds Bank ranks universities by quality of student life, using existing data taken from recent surveys and research. The rankings take into account course satisfaction, employment and salary on graduation, accommodation costs, university sport facilities, crime in the area and the quality of student social life.

At Loughborough 89% of students are satisfied with their course (the national average was 86%) and 94% of graduates found employment, or continued with their studies. Bath was highest for course satisfaction, 93%, whilst over 94% of graduates found employment, or continued with study. Northumbria University students had the cheapest university accommodation, paying an average £1,550 per academic year, whilst Swansea University students paid the lowest private rentals, with an average annual cost of £2,250. The highest full time salaries were earned by students from the LSE, with a median salary (after 6 months in employment) of £27,388 in 2012. Sheffield University was top for social life, followed by Leeds, Newcastle, Durham, Manchester, Dundee and Swansea.

Times Ed world university rankings 2014-15

The Times Education Supplement has published its assessment of the world's university rankings for 2014-15.  Full details and analysis can be found here.

UNIVERSITY			14/15	13/14
California Institute of Technology			1	1
Harvard			2	2
Oxford			3	2
Stanford			4	4
Cambridge			5	7
MIT			6	5
Princeton			7	6
Berkeley			8	8
Imperial College			9	10
Yale			9	11
Other UK university placings
UNIVERSITY	14/15	13/14
UCL	22	21
LSE	34	32
Edinburgh	36	39
Kings College	40	38
Manchester	52	58
Bristol	74	79
Durham	83	80
Glasgow	94	117

Update on the Engineering sector

The ninth annual report on the engineering industry has been published by the Institute of Engineering and Technology, based on a survey of 400 employers of engineering and IT staff. Overall 51% of the firms are recruiting engineers in 2014, with more than half of the companies reporting difficulties in finding the right staff. However, the recruitment of IT staff has fallen from 16% of companies in 2013 to 13%. For the IT sector the main concern was finding apprentices. Since 2013 the number of level 2 Apprenticeships has more than doubled but the number of level 4 higher Apprenticeships has remained static. 

In terms of applicants, 44% felt school leavers did not meet reasonable expectations for skill levels, with 30% saying they did not have enough practical experience and 25% that they did not have the technical expertise. There was also a lot of criticism about literacy and numeracy skills. However, there was even more criticism about graduates, with 54% complaining about skills shortages. The main areas of concern were practical experience 44%, technical expertise 21%, leadership skills 22%, communication skills 15% and ability to work on own initiative 15%, 11% also complained about literacy skills. Just 6% of the engineering workforce were women.

Don't underestimate "soft skills"

A survey of 198 employers by Kaplan found that soft skills, including confidence and an ability to be analytical, were valued more than technical knowledge by graduate employers at the recruitment stage. When asked to rank a list of 30 competencies required or desired by employers, technical knowledge ranked 24th, while effective communication ranked first. Other soft skills, such as being a team player, ranked 3rd, confidence ranked 5th and the ability to be analytical ranked 6th. Ability in numeracy, however, was also ranked highly in 2nd.

The "wrong doctors"

Dr Sarah Wollaston, the chair of the health select committee and a former GP, has said that there is a “huge bias” in medical schools in training people to be hospital doctors rather than GPs, for which there is a huge shortage, especially in rural and deprived areas. She said, “We train too many doctors out of medical school to become acute specialists or which there are no jobs, and yet in general practice we’ve got huge vacancies”. She said that in 2002 there were 2,500 more GPs than hospital doctors but in 2012 there were 6,500 more hospital doctors. She noted that the NHS priority is to manage chronic conditions, such as diabetes, arthritis and asthma, which represent 70% of NHS work.

Students finances

An NUS survey of 3,654 students has found that 11% of undergraduates used credit cards to pay for living costs, 28% had a bank overdraft and nearly half said they had to rely on financial support from their family. In addition, 2% said they had used the service of payday loan companies. However, 28% said they had managed not to have any debt at all.

Warnings of a digital "skills gap"

The CBI has called for businesses and the government to boost digital skills, saying that there were too few graduates with digital skills, such as web design or computer programming, for the jobs available. However, a survey of 2,000 parents by the technology company O2 found that 23% of parents thought skills such as coding were "irrelevant". O2 said that this showed a "disturbing disconnect" between skills in demand from employers and those valued by parents. They said that 750,000 digitally skilled workers will be needed by 2017 to satisfy Britain's "digital potential". Twice the number of UK students took up degrees in medicine compared with computer science between 2012 and 2013.

A spokesperson for O2, Ann Pickering, said it was "no surprise" that parents were "struggling" to keep pace. "I'm a parent, and if I didn't work for a technology company I wouldn't realise the opportunities that are out there," she added. Ms Pickering said, "It is getting harder to get the skills we require. These are skills that didn't exist five years ago, like with social media, for example." Hugh Milward, director of corporate affairs at Microsoft, said, "In the software industry alone there are 20,000 graduate vacancies a year, and only 7,500 computer science graduates to fill them. Digital skills such as coding are being demanded not only by the high-tech sector, but by fast-growing sectors like media, publishing and finance."