Vocational education and training graduate outcomes for STEM and other fields

Graduates with vocational education and training (VET) qualifications report on their employment and income outcomes.

Data insights

Training relevance

In 2023, 65% of women VET STEM graduates reported their training had some or high relevance to their jobs, this is an increase from 63% in 2022. A higher proportion of men than women reported their training had some relevance or was highly relevant to their jobs (79% of men compared to 65% of women).

STEM graduates were more likely to report their training was highly relevant to their job than non‑STEM graduates (53% compared to 51%) or health graduates (53% compared to 50%).

The proportion of women graduates in natural and physical sciences reporting their training was highly relevant to the job decreased by 8 percentage points between 2022 and 2023. The proportion of men in this field who thought their training was highly relevant remained consistent with a 1% increase from 2022 to 2023.

In each year from 2017 to 2023, the proportion of STEM women graduates who reported their training had some or high relevance to their jobs was lower than the proportion of STEM men graduates. This proportion was also lower for women in health fields, compared to men in health fields.

Improved employment outcomes

In 2023, the proportion of women whose employment outcomes improved (by gaining employment or being employed at a higher skill level) after graduating in a VET STEM field remained consistent from the previous year, at 58%. However, this was still lower than the proportion of men whose employment outcomes improved (71%).

The change in proportion of women graduates reporting improved employment outcomes differed in every STEM field between 2022 and 2023:

• in natural and physical sciences, the proportion of women with improved outcomes decreased 10 percentage points
• in engineering and related technologies it remained the same
• in agriculture, environmental and related studies it increased 5 percentage points
• in information technology it increased 10 percentage points.

In 2023, natural and physical sciences graduates had the lowest improvement in employment outcomes, with just 48% of women and 41% of men reporting improved employment outcomes. This represents a change from previous years, where information technology has consistently been the STEM field with the lowest improvement in employment outcomes.

Across all VET courses (including health and non-STEM), 67% of women and 69% of men reported improved employment outcomes in 2023. That’s a small increase of 2 percentage points for women and 3 percentage points for men compared to 2022.

Income

Across all VET STEM fields, women’s median full-time annual income was $59,000 in 2023, a significant increase from $55,000 in 2022. Men’s median full-time annual income was $72,000, a significant increase from $67,000 in 2022. The larger increase in income for men saw the income gap for VET graduates widen in 2023.

Women’s median full-time annual income after graduating from information technology was $65,000 in 2023. This was $2,000 more than men, not a statistically significant difference.

The largest median full-time annual income gap between men and women in STEM was $10,000, in both natural and physical sciences as well as engineering and related technologies.

About the data

The information is derived from the National Student Outcomes Survey, an annual survey of those who fully or partially completed training in Australia during the previous calendar year. 218,313 VET students responded to the 2023 survey.

The survey collects information on VET students’:

• reasons for training
• employment outcomes
• satisfaction with training 
• further study outcomes. 

The data in the visualisation covers graduates with an Australian residential address.

Sampling variance means you should not compare results across time and between groups in the same year. 

Differences between results reported on this page are statistically significant unless otherwise indicated. This means that the differences are due to more than just random chance.

Income values have been rounded and are presented as medians.

Read about VET statistics on the NCVER website.

Read more about our methodology and this data.