We’ve got a shortage of scientists. Since as far back as the early 20th century, both politicians and employers have been concerned that a shortfall of highly skilled workers in the science sector has been holding back economic growth and preventing the UK from fulfilling its potential as a science and technology ‘superpower’.
Most attempts to address this issue have concentrated on increasing the number of students studying science at university, particularly in subjects such as engineering, maths, physics and computer sciences. Many millions of pounds have been spent trying to boost numbers. Initiatives have focused on different levels of education and on different social groups. Girls and women have been a particularly important focus, as their participation in these ‘shortage subjects’ has historically been quite low.
While the proportion of young people going to university increased dramatically from the early 1990s onwards, and there was an increase in enrolment on science degrees in general, the rise in take-up of science degrees was predominantly in ‘newer’ areas such as sports science, psychology and forensics. Numbers taking degrees in areas such as engineering and physics have remained remarkably stable for decades, meaning that in relative terms, the proportion of undergraduates studying these subjects has actually fallen.
The research that I conducted with Professor Emma Smith of the University of Warwick combined all the available data in this area to try to shed some light on this problem. Our findings led us to conclude that policy makers (and employers) have been looking at this problem from the wrong direction, and that increasing the number of students studying science is unlikely to be an effective solution to skills shortages in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) labour market.
Perhaps our most important finding was that less than half of UK science graduates ever work in a highly skilled (HS) STEM job. The vast majority are successful in the labour market and hold graduate-level or professional positions by their early 30s, but most are working outside the science sector. Graduates are generally very successful at getting high-status jobs, but STEM graduates have advanced numeracy and other valued skills and so have plenty of opportunities in non-STEM sectors which often offer better pay and conditions.
There are important differences in labour market outcomes between STEM subjects, however. Nearly two thirds of engineering graduates work in HS STEM jobs at some point, but only a small minority of biological science graduates ever contribute to the STEM sector. Despite the efforts of policy makers to encourage women into STEM careers, graduates from male-dominated subjects are much more likely to work in science that those from subjects that are popular with women. Also, among graduates in some ‘shortage’ subjects, such as computer sciences, there have also been relatively high rates of unemployment and underemployment, compared to levels for graduates as a whole. In these respects, not all STEM degrees are ‘created equal’ in terms of career destinations.
Another important finding was that most HS STEM jobs are held by non-graduates, even among younger workers. The balance between graduates and non-graduates in the HS STEM workforce certainly hasn’t kept up with the wider expansion of undergraduate education, and one reason for this might be the lack of growth in ‘shortage subjects’ mentioned above.
Our findings suggest that the biggest barrier to ending any labour shortages in the STEM sector is not the number of students studying science at university, but rather the proportion of science graduates who go on to work in HS STEM jobs. Increasing participation in science shortage subjects has been a seemingly intractable problem, but even if we were able to do so, if still only a minority of STEM graduates go on to work in science, this would be a very inefficient way of increasing the workforce.
The solution to this problem seems to be based in the ‘pull’ of what employers offer rather than the ‘push’ of increased participation in education. Science graduates have no trouble finding high-status employment outside the STEM sector, so employers within the sector need to make the positions they offer more attractive to potential employees, especially those in underrepresented groups, such as women. If they are unable or cannot afford to do so – either on their own or with support from the government – graduates’ appetite for careers in science is unlikely to change, and employers will continue to complain about shortages.
Patrick White is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Leicester.
Straightforward Statistics, edited by Patrick White, is available to order on Bristol University Press for £19.99 here.
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