Do you use census data? We'd like your feedback.

Scotland’s Census 2022 - Education, labour market and travel to work

An Accredited Official Statistics publication for Scotland

Published: 11 September 2024

Download the data used in our charts

Search census data tables

“Over a third of females aged 16 and over had a degree level qualification or above (35.1%).”

Jon Wroth-Smith, Director of Census Statistics, National Records of Scotland

Degree level qualifications or above

Scotland’s Census asked people aged 16 and over which qualifications they have. The analysis in this report looks at a person’s highest qualification. Qualifications are grouped according to their level. In this report we focus on the top group - degree level qualifications or above:

  • Degree, Postgraduate Qualifications, Masters, PhD, SVQ Level 5 or equivalent
  • Professional Qualifications (for example, teaching, nursing, accountancy)
  • Other degree level Higher Education qualifications (including foreign qualifications)

In 2022 around one third of adults (32.5%) had degree level qualifications or above. This is around one and a half million people (1,476,900), up 334,200 (or by 29.2%) since 2011.

The figures for degree level qualifications or above exclude people whose highest qualification was an HNC, HND or equivalent. Including these people, 44.2% of people aged 16 and over had a Higher Education qualification.

Females saw larger increases than males over the decade. In 2022 35.1% of females aged 16 and over had a degree level qualification or above. This is up from 27.1% in 2011. The percentage of males aged 16 and over with degrees or above increased from 25.0% to 29.6% over the same period.

A higher percentage of females had degree level qualifications across most age groups. The difference between females and males was highest in younger age groups. Half of females (49.7%) aged 25 to 39 had a degree level qualification or above. In contrast under 40% of males in this age range had a degree or above.

Scotland’s Census also asked people for their job title and what they did in their main job. This information is used to derive their occupation. More information on the occupation classification used is available in the census metadata.

Professional and associate professional jobs are likely to require a degree. Occupation data by sex shows that more than half of workers in these occupations were female. However females made up 40.0% of workers in managerial and senior roles despite more females having a degree at almost all ages.

“Half of all adults (50.0%) in the City of Edinburgh council area had a degree level qualification or above.”

Jon Wroth-Smith, Director of Census Statistics, National Records of Scotland

Figure 4 shows how the percentage of people with degree level qualifications or above varied across council areas in Scotland. Half of all adults (50.0%) in the City of Edinburgh council area had a degree or above. East Renfrewshire (44.6%) and East Dunbartonshire (42.9%) had the next highest percentages. No other council area had over 40% of adults with a degree level qualification or above.

So there were concentrations of people with degrees living in and around Scotland’s two biggest cities. But the patterns in the east and west are different.

The City of Edinburgh council area had a relatively high percentage of adults with degrees. The surrounding council areas had lower percentages. In the west the pattern is different. Glasgow City council area has a lower percentage of adults with degrees. And there is a relatively high percentage of adults with degrees in two of the neighbouring council areas.