Creative graduates flock to portfolio careers

A major longitudinal study undertaken between 2008 and 2010 of the early career patterns of more than 3,500 graduates in practice-based art, design, crafts and media subjects, qualifying in 2002, 2003 and 2004 from 26 UK higher education institutions showed that 48% of them already had portfolio careers.  Typically they were  combining employment with self-employment, study or developing their creative practice. Interestingly they aspire to creative careers and achieving a good life/work balance, their career goals aligning with their subject disciplines and their career plans most influenced by a strong desire for new learning and the pursuit of creative practice above high earnings. In other words they are behaving as we would predict the Gen Y generation to behave. Of course these graduates would be more likely to experiment with their careers than some other graduates but even so this is a real indicator of how things are moving in the job world.