Graduates are going abroad for better job opportunities

With more than one in three recent university leavers unemployed, many have gone in search for better prospects and pay in the faster-growing economies of Asia and Australasia.

Jamie Devonshire, 26, graduated from Manchester University in 2008 and moved to Hong Kong two years ago to work for a small investment fund.

“Been here two years now and love it. Weather, lifestyle and job all going well,” he said via email from Hong Kong.

Mr Devonshire said he was unlikely to return home soon.

“Currently, I don’t see any incentive to move back to the UK, job market is weak and property ladder is still next to impossible to get on for first-time buyers.”

His girlfriend also recently moved to join him and managed to find a much better paid teaching job than she had in Britain.

The number of undergraduates from the UK and EU taking jobs overseas after graduating from British universities has increased by 25 per cent since the start of the economic crisis in 2008, according to data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA).

When adjusted to look only at British students moving overseas there was a rise of 27 per cent between 2008 and 2011.

It also showed that more EU students were moving back to continental Europe after their studies, whereas before many would have stayed in Britain. Oxbridge graduates are leading the exodus.