To think people are overeducated in the UK?

My 19n year old was a duty manager at premier inn. This was 2.5 years ago

The US was a job while he was at uni

I doubt you’ll ever see it again either.

@cathome64 don’t forget Trump said ‘I love the poorly educated’ of course he does because they will just go along with and support him if it aligns with their prejudices and beliefs without too much critical analysis of whether something makes sense, is doable or where’s the money coming from - it’s like Farage saying he would make £20k a year tax free, but if that extra £7 k a year allowance ( which means around £100 a month more ) is then balanced off with other ‘cuts’ or paid in healthcare ( that may not even be any better) and possibly around £180 a month each minimum - it’s all rather pointless - but hey people just look at the headline figure .

No. In comparison with lots of western economies I would say the opposite.

I do think quite a look of people look down on higher education, which I find quite strange. I can see it's not for everyone, but to approach it with active disdain is strange to me.

Graduates don’t choose this. The job market is a hellscape right now!

I think the issues are coming from the other direction: lack of research and specialised job roles in this country

There’s plenty trained in medicine. There’s no jobs for them.
Ds’s gf is training to be a consultant.

The nhs used to have jobs for all trainee consultants. Now they don’t. It’s a nightmare

Obviously she meant an entry-level job!

I don't think it is overeducated, it is educated in the wrong areas. Not enough trained in medicine, not enough apprenticeships, for example.

I'm really amazed at the number of posters who think the OP meant that her DC was applying for a management job at 18! She said her DC who is 18 "couldn't get a job there/" Seems blindingly obvious to me that she meant an entry-level job!

I don't think people are over-educated but I do think some people could use lessons in common sense and how to do or deal with things in their day to day lives. I've lost count of the number of people I have seen who have a string of certificates but make silly ridiculous errors because they can't transfer the basics of something learned to a similar situation or scenario. It like they have certain things in a metephorical box and it can and will only apply to that circumstance and not that it will work for something else too.

Mm. I grew up working class and spent almost 20 years educating myself and trying to get into my chosen field. When I found myself working in a sandwich shop and living in a rented room in my thirties I gave up, married a man with a good job and became a housewife.

I should have stayed in my lane, eh? Who did I think I was wasting my time trying to make a good life for myself?.

This!!!!

I never expected to see highly educated and intelligent in the same sentence as Reform or Trump.

Totally - my son actually did get an apprenticeship at 16 in tech and telecoms with enthusiastic support from me and is now 27 and doing fine in London -he’s on his 4th job and was never once asked about degrees etc once he had his BTEC and 3 years post qual experience. One thing I’m really glad we did though, he was in a house share in Bristol a week before he was18 and in flat shares in London from 20. So he had that’ need to budget and understanding of other peoples mess, nicking your food etc’ that he didn’t get UNI - funnily enough he did go to London uni as a mature student at Birbeck for 18 months combined with a tech part time job but packed it in due to a less than great experience during Covid - he’s very very glad he had his tech and telecoms skills under his belt.

you are so right about these days telling people ‘you must go to Uni’ and then lots of places devaluing it if it’s not ‘top10 uni’ or a 1st etc . Honestly if I was 16 through to 20 I would push through getting an apprenticeship if you can or some work experience and then if you still feel that pull- go at 21!! Better allowances too and no call on parental contributions either if you’ve been self supporting.

I think 2 problems are:

-Not enough research or guidance info how graduates can use their degree for a good career path

-Too many people studying the wrong subject because they make the decision when they are 17.

I have a degree and never used it. I worked my way up in business instead, starting out in a call centre.

I don't think people can be over educated tbh. Surely good education and study should be applauded? As has been said before it's the economy/job market. Going off on a tangent i would love to retire which must be true for thousands of older worker, but the bastard government put the retirement age up meaning there's even less job opportunities for youngsters.

I really don't think that the OP meant her DD was expecting to get a management job at Lidl at 18.

The people who got Trump into power are not highly educated. Neither are the people who will get Reform into power.

Farage was privately educated but is as thick as two planks but all he needs is for the masses to not have had the benefit of spending 3 years in a diverse uni campus where critical thinking is encouraged. .

I think it's obvious that the OP meant an entry level job, not a management job. She said her DD "couldn't get a job there." Given that she's 18, well, common sense suggests.....

The thing is there are not enough proper jobs (most of the stuff on Indeed seems to be vague, incomprehensible job titles/descriptions or care workers) which have to be available from school leavers right up to people who are nudging 70.

Yes it’s a problem. As a country the uk is low productivity compared to where we need to be to sustain our quality of life, not enough people are in high tech jobs creating exportable value. But for individuals with all the right qualifications… no jobs to be found. So it’s an investment problem. We’re over educated compared to the available funded jobs but under educated compared to what the demand for skills should be. Those who have the money are not investing in what would help the country long term and refusing to invest in training (even if you’re fabulously qualified, you’ll need some training if you’ve not worked in that industry or exact job before. What we’re seeing at the moment is a collapse specifically of new grad jobs and every position requires 3-5 years perfectly relevant experience as a minimum).

One problem is that traditionally lower income countries have massively grown in tech capability and out compete us, so it’s harder to sustain export producing jobs. Another problem is Brexit messing up our easiest export route. And a precipitous jump in inequality means a lot of money has been effectively removed from the real economy a) suppressing the local demand that might help to smooth things over and at least keep the internal economy moving b) lowering tax revenue so the govt has less available to invest and c) centering investment decisions in too few hands. Add in a government for the last decade that has systematically under invested and destroyed government budgets so that investment now is very difficult and we’re shouldering an increased debt burden… yeah it’s not an easy situation to get out of and we’re all collateral damage.

speaking as someone very highly educated (and with real work experience, I might add, and always high performing) in a supposedly high demand stem field, the jobs simply aren’t there. So yes I’ll be looking at things I’m ridiculously over educated for which pay far less than I was expecting to be worth. It’s shit. It’s not solved by slashing benefits and punishing people, nor by telling every young person to become a plumber. As a country we need to export, it is not generally feasible to export trades.

Slowly. I started with an evening class in Horticulture (level 2 RHS) at a local adult education college and then went on to do a semi remote diploma at the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh. The level 2 RHS is enough to be a qualified gardener. It was really fun but if you do it, I recommend doing it in person, as it's very detailed and you will lose the will to live if you don't have cohort support, I reckon. I found adult learning a lot harder because my eyes were tired, I was tired, and I had a lot more life going on than when I was in uni, where all I had to do was finely balance my partying and studying.

Not everyone should need a degree.

Nobody is saying they should.

Intelligence, education and wisdom and three completely different things - add in a fourth being common sense.

Having a degree doesn't automatically give you all four attributes!

Lots of people with degrees can be remarkably "thick" in normal day to day living, despite being remarkably "educated" in their chosen field.