The UB holds the first position in Spain and the 87th worldwide in the QS Graduate Employability Rankings

The ranking takes into account five indicators: Employer reputation (30%), which measures the employersʼ opinion, with 75,000 answers; Alumni outcomes (25%), which considers the evolution of the graduates during their professional career; Employer partnerships (25%), which analyses the institutionsʼ collaboration with industry partners; Employer-student connections (10%), which assesses the number of present businesses in the campus that offer opportunities to students, and Graduate employment rate (10%) measures the success of universities when promoting employability (proportion of graduates in full and part-time employment or those who find a job up until twelve months after their graduation).

The University of Barcelona outstands in the university-business partnership, with a score of 99.55 out of 100. In Graduate employment rate it gets a score of 74.6. The University of Barcelona has a total score of 61.1 globally.

Excellent results in employability despite the pandemic context

The vice-rector for Students and Participation, Marta Ferrer, values these results of the UB as “satisfactory, considering the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the activities the university carries out to promote the studentsʼ employability”. During the academic year 2019/2020, coinciding with the lockdown, the offering of in-company placements fell by 12% and the job offers at the job bank fell by 41%. “The faculties were forced to make a great effort to find new companies and entities where students could carry out their work placements. Also, employment fairs were cancelled, reducing the 35% of the amount of participating companies”, notes Ferrer. “Despite these difficulties, the UB has improved its position in the rankings”, she concludes.

The UB is followed in Spain by the Technical University of Madrid and the University of Navarra. In Catalonia, the UB is followed by UPC, UAB and UPF. The ranking lists up to fifteen Spanish universities.

 In this edition, the fifth of the ranking, the number of analysed institutions has increased: the list has analysed a total of 786 institutions compared to the 758 in the last edition. The results of the top 500 centres have been published. The world ranking is led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Sydney.

The QS Graduate Employability Rankings 2020 has analysed eighteen Spanish universities. The aim of this list is to answer questions on the reputation of the universities among the companies, the level of connection between the universities and the companies, or the interest in the graduates of a university in the employment sector, for instance.