The research shows that major North West cities are popular places for graduates and qualified young people to reside.
Major cities such as Manchester and towns close to these urban centres, as well as some prosperous university towns such as York, are registered as the places with the highest proportions of graduates from the overall cohort in 2018-2019.
Manchester ended up with more graduates than it produced and more non-graduates with advanced qualifications. It was one of the cities that attracted the most graduates (as a share of their local GCSE cohort population), and it even had a more impressive inward migration rate than inner London (which had a 33% rate). The number of graduates who moved to Manchester from elsewhere equalled 36% of the town’s GCSE cohort.
Looking at the data, Liverpool had more graduates than it produced and a similar number of non-graduates with advanced qualifications as it produced. Of graduates in Liverpool, 34% moved there from elsewhere, and 66% stayed after achieving their qualifications. Not only does Liverpool attract young, qualified residents from outside the area, but 47% of graduates from Liverpool stayed throughout university and then moved into the local labour market after graduating.
The ONS report states that the North West graduate cohort is the least likely of all non-London regions to have moved from the town or city where they took their GCSE exams (33%). Furthermore, of those with a graduate-level degree, graduates from the North West are the least likely to move out of their home region (48%) or even the local commuting area (68%).
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