Eighty percent job rate for UQ PhD graduates: survey

The career relevance and high quality of a University of Queensland PhD is reflected in latest figures showing nearly 80 percent of 1999 graduates have jobs.

In the January 2000 survey entitled The step after the PhD, 69 percent of the 369 UQ students who had submitted their PhD theses by late 1999 had jobs while a further 10 percent reported they would take up a position within six months.

Of these, 61 percent were at universities - 30 percent in teaching and research and 31 percent research only - and another 23 percent were research positions in either the private sector (five percent) or in CSIRO, government departments or the non-university public sector (18 percent).

The University's Vice-Chancellor Professor John Hay said the figures reflected the institution's continued position at the forefront of postgraduate training in Australia.

"The survey also shows that in an environment where positions in academe are tight, nearly two-thirds of our PhD graduates can secure jobs at universities," Professor Hay said.

The figures indicated not only the high quality of University PhDs but also their relevance to careers, he said.

"More than 90 percent of students with jobs said they were using what they'd learned in their PhD in their positions," Professor Hay said.

Professor Hay said many students and employers had a narrow perception of the skills that research higher degree students actually acquired during their study and associated activities.

He said the survey showed nearly two-thirds of the students would be taking up Queensland-based jobs (62 percent) with 10 percent working in other states and the rest overseas. Thirty percent of these positions were at The University of Queensland, he said.

"This is good news for Australia in that we are retaining highly qualified researchers. It indicates we have quality infrastructure and career opportunities," he said.

The survey showed part-time students were more likely to have a job (93 percent) than full-time students (60 percent).

"The survey in itself is an example of the University's confidence in the quality of its postgraduate training as it provides data for benchmarking with other institutions and a way to maintain best practice internationally," Professor Hay said.

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