Summary Statistics for Follow-up Leaver Destinations, No. 3: 2021 Edition

Chapter 3: Initial to follow-up destination comparison

• 95.7 per cent of 2019/20 school leavers who were in a positive initial destination were also in a positive follow-up destination.

A school leaver's follow-up destination, nine months after they leave school, may differ from their initial destination, three months after they leave school. Information on the initial destinations of 2019/20 school leavers was published in February 2021.

Chart 3 compares 2019/20 school leaver initial destination rates 3 months after leaving school with follow-up destination rates (9 months after leaving school).

The percentage of 2019/20 school leavers in a positive follow-up destination (92.2 per cent) was lower than the percentage of school leavers in a positive initial destination (93.3 per cent); a similar pattern can be seen across previous school leaver cohorts.

The largest reductions between initial and follow-up destinations were in Further Education and Higher Education, by 4.4 and 1.3 percentage points respectively. Meanwhile, the proportion in Employment increased by 5.2 percentage points between initial and follow-up destination.

The proportion of leavers in other destinations (see section 1.2) increased by 1.2 percentage points between initial and follow-up destinations with Unemployed Not Seeking increasing by 0.8 percentage points. A time series of initial and follow-up destinations is available in the supplementary tables (see supporting files). A list of these tables is available in section 4.7.

Note 12: This chart uses fill to distinguish follow-up destination statuses from initial destination statuses and colour to distinguish between destination category types (positive and other). Bars with a fill represent follow-up destinations, while bars with no fill represent initial destinations. The lighter colour shown – used for the bottom four bars – represents other destinations, while the darker shade represents positive destinations.

Chart 4 shows the percentage of school leavers whose follow-up destination was the same as their initial destination. In 2019/20, 95.7 per cent of those in a positive initial destination were also in a positive follow-up destination, although some of them will have moved from one positive destination to another. The destination in which school leavers were most likely to remain between initial and follow-up was Higher Education, at 96.0 per cent; followed by Employment at 93.3 per cent. School leavers whose initial destination was Personal Skills Development were less likely to remain in the same destination, which may be partially due to the (typically) short-term nature of these activities (see section 4.4.1). More information on school leavers who sustained a destination or moved into another destination category is available in the supplementary tables (see supporting files). A list of these tables is available in section 4.7.