Graduate Employment Outcomes in Australia: The Official 2025 Data
Official QILT 2025 data shows how Australian graduates fare in employment and salary, split by whether they stay in Australia or go overseas. We break down the numbers, what they measure, and how to verify them.
The official 2025 Graduate Outcomes Survey, published through QILT, gives a clear picture of what happens to graduates roughly one year after completing their studies. The headline is straightforward: graduates who remain in Australia and graduates who move overseas both find work, but the patterns differ by study level and by whether you look at full-time employment, overall employment, labour force participation, or median salary.
For undergraduates from all provider types who were still in Australia at the time of the survey, the full-time employment rate was 51.9 percent. Overall employment, which includes part-time and casual work, reached 73.9 percent. The labour force participation rate was 78.7 percent, and the median annual full-time salary was 70,000 Australian dollars.
For undergraduates who were overseas at the time of the survey, the full-time employment rate was 56.3 percent, overall employment was 61.1 percent, and labour force participation was 70.2 percent. The survey does not publish a comparable median salary figure for this group in the same table, which is worth noting before you compare the two columns too directly.
Postgraduate coursework graduates show a different profile. Among those still in Australia, full-time employment was 52.2 percent, overall employment was 77.6 percent, labour force participation was 91.3 percent, and median annual full-time salary was 69,400 Australian dollars. Among those overseas, full-time employment was 60.2 percent, overall employment was 64.6 percent, and labour force participation was 87.5 percent.
These figures come from a sample survey, not a census of every graduate. That distinction matters when you read any single percentage. The Graduate Outcomes Survey is designed to be representative of the graduate population, but every point estimate carries sampling error, and the confidence intervals published alongside the data tell you how much uncertainty surrounds each number.
What the 2025 Graduate Outcomes Survey Actually Measures
The Graduate Outcomes Survey, or GOS, is one of the surveys run under the Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching, known as QILT. It targets graduates who completed their qualifications in the previous calendar year and surveys them approximately four to six months after graduation. The 2025 data reflects graduates from the 2024 academic year, and the results are published by the Australian Government Department of Education through the QILT website.
The survey covers graduates from all provider types, which means universities, non-university higher education providers, and other registered institutions are all included in the aggregate figures. The tables used for the numbers above break results down by residence at the time of the survey, which is how we can separate graduates who stayed in Australia from those who were living overseas when they answered.
Full-time employment is the strictest measure: it counts graduates working 35 or more hours per week. Overall employment is broader and includes anyone in paid work, whether full-time, part-time, or casual. Labour force participation tells you what share of graduates are either employed or actively looking for work, so it captures people who are unemployed but seeking a job. Median salary is calculated only for full-time employees, which is why it appears alongside the full-time employment rate rather than the overall rate.
One important limitation is that the survey does not tell you why a graduate is overseas. Someone who returned home after study, someone who took a job abroad, and someone who is travelling all fall into the same category. The data describes outcomes by location, not by intention or visa status.
How to Read the Australia Versus Overseas Comparison
The most useful way to read these numbers is side by side, because the two groups answer different questions. The in-Australia figures describe the domestic labour market for recent graduates. The overseas figures describe what graduates who have left the country are doing, which includes both employment in other countries and graduates who may not be working at all.
For undergraduates, the overseas group actually shows a higher full-time employment rate than the in-Australia group: 56.3 percent compared with 51.9 percent. But the in-Australia group shows a much higher overall employment rate: 73.9 percent versus 61.1 percent. That combination tells you that graduates who stay in Australia are more likely to be in some form of work, but a larger share of that work is part-time or casual. Graduates who go overseas are less likely to be working overall, but when they do work, it is more likely to be full-time.
Labour force participation adds another layer. For undergraduates in Australia, 78.7 percent are in the labour force, meaning roughly one in five is not working and not looking for work. For those overseas, the participation rate drops to 70.2 percent. Some of that gap likely reflects graduates who are studying further, caring for family, or not seeking work in their current location.
Postgraduate coursework graduates show a similar pattern but with higher participation overall. The in-Australia group has a 91.3 percent labour force participation rate, which is very high, and an overall employment rate of 77.6 percent. The overseas group has an 87.5 percent participation rate and a 64.6 percent overall employment rate, but a higher full-time employment rate at 60.2 percent.
The salary figures only exist for the in-Australia groups in the tables we are using. Undergraduate median full-time salary was 70,000 Australian dollars, and postgraduate coursework median full-time salary was 69,400 Australian dollars. The postgraduate figure being slightly lower than the undergraduate figure is a reminder that median salaries vary by field of study, and postgraduate coursework includes many disciplines where early-career salaries are not necessarily higher than undergraduate salaries.
Why the Migration Factor Matters in These Numbers
The Graduate Outcomes Survey tells you where graduates end up, but it does not tell you why they chose Australia in the first place. That question is answered by a separate QILT survey, the Student Experience Survey, which asks international students about their reasons for choosing to study in Australia.
In the 2025 Student Experience Survey, students from China, excluding SARs and Taiwan, rated the possibility of migrating to Australia at 55.0 percent importance. That means 55.0 percent of respondents from that group listed migration possibility as a reason for choosing Australia. The figure comes with a 90 percent confidence interval of 54.0 to 55.9, which gives you the range within which the true value likely falls.
Comparing that with other source countries puts the number in context. Students from Nepal rated migration possibility at 79.2 percent, students from India at 76.5 percent, students from Bangladesh at 70.5 percent, and students from Sri Lanka at 79.9 percent. Students from Singapore rated it at 58.8 percent, and students from Hong Kong, as a SAR of China, at 74.2 percent. The 55.0 percent figure for mainland China is among the lower values in this group, though it still represents a majority of respondents from that cohort.
These are importance ratings, not predictions. The Student Experience Survey asks students how important each factor was in their decision, and the percentage reflects the share of respondents who rated that factor as important. It does not measure how many students will actually attempt to migrate, nor does it measure migration outcomes. The Graduate Outcomes Survey and the Student Experience Survey are separate instruments, and you should not combine them to infer a causal link between migration intention and employment outcomes.
How to Verify the Data Yourself
All the figures in this article come from publicly available QILT data. The primary entry point is the QILT website, where you can access the survey results, methodology, and data processing procedures. The ComparED website is the companion tool that lets you look up outcomes for specific institutions and courses, and it includes a help section explaining how to interpret the data.
When you look up the numbers yourself, there are a few things to check. First, confirm which survey year you are looking at. The 2025 GOS data reflects graduates from the 2024 academic year, and the 2025 SES data reflects students surveyed during the 2025 academic year. These are different cohorts and different survey instruments.
Second, check the filter settings. The tables used here are filtered to all provider types, which is the broadest available category. If you filter to a single institution or a single field of study, the numbers will change, sometimes substantially. The aggregate figures are not a substitute for institution-level data, and institution-level data is not a substitute for the aggregate picture.
Third, look at the confidence intervals. QILT publishes confidence intervals for many of its estimates, and the Graduate Outcomes Survey page includes documentation on how these are calculated. A point estimate without its confidence interval can be misleading, especially when comparing two groups whose intervals overlap.
Fourth, understand the residence variable. The tables used here classify graduates by whether they were in Australia or overseas at the time of the survey. This is not the same as visa status, citizenship, or where the graduate originally came from. A domestic student who moved overseas after graduation and an international student who returned home both appear in the overseas column.
What the Data Does Not Tell You
The official data is strong on outcomes but silent on several questions that prospective students often ask. It does not tell you which specific employers hired graduates, how long graduates stayed in their first job, or whether graduates were satisfied with the match between their study and their work. It does not break down outcomes by visa type, so you cannot separate temporary graduate visa holders from permanent residents or citizens within the in-Australia group.
The data also does not tell you about graduates who are not in the labour force at all. The labour force participation rate captures this indirectly, but the survey does not ask why someone is not working or looking for work. For international graduates who return home, the reasons could include family obligations, further study, or simply not needing to work, and the survey does not distinguish among them.
Finally, the data is a snapshot at one point in time. The Graduate Outcomes Survey captures outcomes roughly four to six months after graduation. The Graduate Outcomes Survey Longitudinal, or GOS-L, follows graduates over a longer period, and it is a separate survey with its own methodology. If you want to know what happens three years after graduation, the longitudinal data is the relevant source, not the one-year GOS figures.
Practical Takeaways for Reading These Numbers
If you are comparing study options, the most honest reading of the 2025 data is that both staying in Australia and returning overseas can lead to employment, but the shape of that employment differs. Graduates who stay in Australia are more likely to be in some form of work, including part-time and casual roles. Graduates who go overseas are more likely to be in full-time work when they are employed, but a smaller share of them are employed at all.
For postgraduate coursework graduates, the labour force participation rate in Australia is notably high at 91.3 percent, which suggests that most of these graduates are either working or actively seeking work shortly after finishing their degree. The full-time employment rate of 52.2 percent is lower than many people expect, and that gap between participation and full-time employment is where the real story lies: many graduates are in the labour force but not in full-time roles yet.
Median salaries are useful anchors but should not be read as guarantees. The 70,000 Australian dollar median for undergraduates and the 69,400 Australian dollar median for postgraduate coursework graduates are national figures across all fields and all provider types. A graduate in a high-demand field can earn well above the median, and a graduate in a field with a crowded job market can earn well below it.
The migration possibility data from the Student Experience Survey adds context to these outcomes. When 55.0 percent of students from mainland China rate migration possibility as an important reason for choosing Australia, it suggests that employment outcomes are not the only factor driving demand. But the survey measures importance, not success, and the Graduate Outcomes Survey does not track migration outcomes. The two datasets answer different questions, and neither one should be used to predict the other.
Where to Find the Official Sources
All data referenced in this article comes from QILT and ComparED, the official public platforms for Australian higher education quality indicators. The Graduate Outcomes Survey page on QILT provides the survey methodology and results, and the Student Experience Survey page provides the reasons-for-choosing data. The ComparED website allows you to search outcomes by institution and course, and its help section explains how the data is collected and interpreted.
The data was checked on 2026-09-07. QILT and ComparED are maintained by the Australian Government Department of Education, and they are the authoritative sources for graduate employment and student experience data in Australia. If you are making decisions based on these figures, always verify them against the current published versions, as survey cycles and data processing procedures can change.