The October 2022 edition of the ApplyBoard Pulse Survey showed that affordability of education topped international student concerns last year. In that survey, 80% of respondents cited post-graduation work opportunities as a student concern when choosing where to study. This concern ranked second among 14 possible choices.
But how well do students’ career paths line up with job market vacancies? Are the most popular fields of study aligned with job market needs?
To find out, we leveraged the ApplyBoard platform’s internal data to see what fields students searched for last year. This included millions of searches across ApplyBoard’s five destination markets. We then cross-referenced our internal data with the latest available job vacancy rates from each destination market. Some of the results were truly surprising.
Key Insights at a Glance
- The grouped category of business, management, and economics was the most searched for field of study in every destination market.
- Health care is a top job vacancy in every destination market, and student interest in health and nursing programs has jumped over the past three years.
- The total number of STEM occupations in the US is projected to reach nearly 11 million by 2031.1
What Fields of Study Students Search for by Destination Market
Our first major surprise stems from the lack of major differences in searches by destination market, as shown in the chart below:
Search trends are relatively similar across all five destination markets. Business leads the way in each market, followed by engineering and then sciences. Business programs saw five percentage points more interest than the next closest field in four destination markets. It’s the fourth year in a row that the business bucket was number one by a wide margin.
Health-related fields accounted for only 11% of all searches, which surprised us. As highlighted in our top predictions for 2023, health and nursing were two of the fastest-growing programs from 2020 to 2022. The global shortage of health care workers is projected to persist through the coming decade. Indeed, the sector saw some of the largest vacancy numbers and highest vacancy rates in every destination market. This suggests that all major players in the international education sector—governments, schools, businesses, and recruitment partners—could do more to ensure students with transferable skill sets are aware of the forecasted career opportunities in health care.
For more exclusive internal data from ApplyBoard, check out our second annual trends report, where we used our filter data to examine the evolution of the student budget.
Field of Study Searches and Job Vacancy Trends for Australia
The charts below show Australian field of study search data on the ApplyBoard platform, and spotlight some related job vacancies in Australia.2 You can use the legend or drop-down menu to highlight specific sectors:
Surprisingly, the proportion of businesses reporting vacancies in the health care and social assistance sector dropped nine percentage points from May 2022 to November 2022. Over the same period, the total number of vacancies declined by 9%. We don’t expect this to be a long-lasting trend. Within the next five years, Australia is expected to require 250,000 more skilled workers in the health and social care sector.3
Looking elsewhere, it’s easy to see why Australia received the highest percentage of arts searches among ApplyBoard’s five destinations. Australia hosts a thriving arts and culture sector that contributes over $115 billion to the economy every year. Vacancies in the arts and recreation sector have doubled since 2020 even as half the number of businesses reported vacancies over the same period.4 And it should be noted that a bachelor of arts can open the door to a wide variety of career opportunities: one survey found that 21% of BA graduates entered Australia’s tech sector.
Australia’s recent extension of post-study work rights for international students makes Australia arguably the most generous destination for post-graduate work. Australia also just updated its post-study work visa for Indian international students.
Field of Study Searches and Job Vacancy Trends for Canada
The charts below show Canadian field of study search data and spotlight job vacancies in some relevant sectors.5 The legend and drop-down menu let you highlight specific industries:
From Q2 to Q3 2022, the number of job vacancies continued to rise in health care (+9%), the arts (+10%), and public administration (+7%), while the total number of vacancies declined by 3% over this period in which the global economy cooled. Also, from Q3 2021 to Q3 2022, vacancies for management occupations grew 15% and reached nearly 45,000, while vacancies in business, finance, and administration grew by 13% over the same period, reaching nearly 105,000.6
The professional, scientific, and technical sector was one of the hardest hit sectors overall from Q2 to Q3 2022. Total vacancies for the industry dropped 15% as the vacancy rate fell a whole percentage point. While the 63,000 vacancies remains high, students interested in this field may also gain skill sets transferable to health sciences, which has more than double the number of job vacancies.
The ApplyBoard blog recently spotlighted four careers for international students to consider for 2023.
Field of Study Searches and Job Vacancy Trends for Ireland
The charts below show Irish field of study search data and spotlight job vacancies in some relevant sectors.7 The legend and drop-down menu let you highlight specific industries:
The total number of job vacancies in Ireland was up 72% in Q3 2022 over 2018, with the total job vacancy rate growing half a percentage point over this time. And there’s some especially good news for students: the fields of study they’re searching for in Ireland represent some of the country’s most in-demand sectors.
Ireland saw a higher percentage of searches for the combined group of law, politics, social sciences, community service, and teaching than any other ApplyBoard destination. And two of fastest growing in-demand sectors are education, and public administration and defense. From Q3 2018 to 2022, vacancies in the former industry grew by 138% and in the latter by 185%. Both were in the top four sectors for both total vacancies and vacancy rate.
Likewise, science, technology, and health fields of study accounted for a higher percentage of searches in Ireland than any other destination except for the US. And the professional, scientific, and technical sector is Ireland’s most in-demand industry. Vacancies in the sector grew by 64% in Q3 2022 compared to 2018, as the industry topped all others for both total vacancies and vacancy rate. Health care vacancies more than doubled over the same period.
Stay tuned to ApplyInsights, as we’ll provide an updated breakdown of Ireland’s international education sector in February.
Field of Study Searches and Job Vacancy Trends for the UK
The charts below show field of study search data for the UK and spotlight job vacancies in some relevant sectors.8 The legend and drop-down menu let you highlight specific industries:
The 40% for business searches in the UK represented the largest outlier in the data set. The good news for students? Vacancies in the financial and insurance sector were up 26% in 2022 compared to 2018. This industry was one of only six with a vacancy rate higher in 2022 over the previous year.
However, this massive percentage of searches for business cut into the proportion of searches for both engineering and the sciences. And professional scientific and technical activities had the fourth most vacancies and fourth highest vacancy rate among all UK industries. The US dominates student search interest for STEM, but with macroeconomics shifting the affordability of destination markets, there’s opportunity for filter usage to shift as well.
Check out our dive into the latest HESA data release, fresh off the press.
Field of Study Searches and Job Vacancy Trends for the US
The charts below show field of study search data for the US and spotlight job opening rates in some relevant sectors.9 The legend and drop-down menu let you highlight specific industries:
It’s no secret STEM fields reign supreme in the US. The latest enrollment data shows that 53% of international students studied STEM fields in 2021/22. And the search results on the ApplyBoard platform reflect STEM’s dominance.
It’s easy to see why: STEM occupations accounted for 9.8 million jobs in the US in 2021, and the field is projected to grow by more than 10% by 2031, reaching just shy of 11 million jobs. Likewise, jobs in the life, physical, and social sciences are expected to grow by 7% by 2031, with about 148,000 openings each year. Health care had the second largest job openings rate in November 2022.
But this doesn’t mean students should shy away from the US if they’re uninterested in STEM. Professional and business services was one of only five industries with a rising job openings rate in November 2022 over the previous year. And the arts and entertainment was one of only four sectors with an openings rate over 7% during the same month.
Looking Forward
Post-graduation work opportunities continue to top international student concerns. The good news for students is that job vacancies in some sectors relevant to popular fields of study grew over the previous years.
For example, sciences and engineering accounted for two of the most common searched-for fields of study by students and their counsellors in 2022. The US remained the most popular destination for this field, but the vacancy rate for the professional, scientific, and technical activities sector remained high in Australia, Ireland, Canada, and the UK. Post-graduation work opportunities should be available to students in this field in any destination market.
Schools may also want to start leveraging job vacancy data in their marketing materials. The arts, one of the least-searched fields in 2022, has a reputation for difficult employment post-graduation, yet the data shows that the sector has a high job vacancy rate in nearly every destination. Leveraging vacancy data could help recruit for undersubscribed programs, while search data can also inform future course offerings.
Stay tuned to ApplyInsights, as we’ll have articles covering the latest trends in all five destination markets in the coming weeks.
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FOOTNOTES:
1. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment in STEM occupations. September 2022.
2. Vacancy data courtesy of the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
3. The Age, Australia urgently needs a health workforce plan. May 2022.
4. Arts and recreational careers include sports and fitness instructors, visual arts and crafts professionals, gardeners and greenkeepers, and more.
5. Data courtesy of Stats Canada.
6. Data courtesy of Stats Canada.
7. Vacancy data courtesy of the Central Statistics Office.
8. Vacancy data courtesy of the Office for National Statistics. Vacancies tracked by quarterly intervals. For the purposes of this article, we refer to the last month of the quarterly interval only.
9. Job openings data courtesy of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
