Ten years after graduation 88% of Irish nursing and midwifery graduates from 2012 who participated in Census 2022 worked in the Irish healthcare system as Nurses & Midwives. Some 95% of Irish medicine graduates from 2012 who participated in Census 2022 worked as Medical Practitioners 10 years after graduation.
Of all Irish nursing and midwifery graduates who graduated in 2013, 37% were ‘not captured’ in Irish administrative records for at least one year in the 10 years since they graduated, indicating they may have emigrated. Of these, 62% returned within the same period.
Of all 2013 Irish medicine graduates, 30% were ‘not captured’ for at least one year in the 10 years since they graduated. Of these, 39% returned within the same period.
Approximately 70% of Irish medicine graduates and Irish nursing and midwifery graduates who graduated in 2013 worked in the public sector as their main employment 10 years after graduation.
Male Irish nursing and midwifery graduates who graduated in 2013 earned €30 per week more than female graduates one year after graduation. After 10 years this difference increased to €219 per week.
Male Irish medicine graduates who graduated in 2013 earned €26 per week more than female graduates one year after graduation. After 10 years this difference increased to €790 per week.
The CSO would like to acknowledge the work of Michael Larkin, who worked with the Statistical System Coordination Unit on this project as part of the CSO’s Graduate Programme. We wish to extend our appreciation and thanks to him for leading the analysis and production of this release.
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Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (14 November 2025) published Higher Education Outcomes Health Graduates 2023, Graduation Years 2010 – 2022. This new release analyses the destinations of health graduates in terms of employment and re-enrolment in education in Ireland and analyses graduates’ migration patterns over the last decade using administrative data.
Commenting on the release, Brian Stanley, Statistician, said: “This release measures health graduates’ international mobility, sector of employment, and earnings in the decade after their graduation. The release also presents new insights into health graduates' occupation and place of work by linking administrative data to the pseudonymised copy of the Census of Population Analysis 2022 dataset held internally within the CSO.
This data shows that 88% of the 2012 Irish nursing and midwifery graduates who participated in Census 2022 worked as Nurses & Midwives 10 years after graduation, while 95% of the 2012 Irish medicine graduates who participated in Census 2022 worked as Medical Practitioners 10 years after graduation.
Of all Irish nursing and midwifery graduates who graduated in 2013, 37% were ‘not captured’ in the administrative records for at least one year in the 10 years since they graduated. While it is assumed that graduates who were ‘not captured’ have emigrated, there is no definitive indicator of emigration available. Of these not captured in administrative records for at least one year, 62% returned within the same period. Of all Irish medicine graduates from 2013, 30% were ‘not captured’ for at least one year in the 10 years since they graduated. Of these, 39% returned within the same period.
Earnings
When it comes to earnings, our analysis shows substantial differences between male and female graduates, even one year after graduation. Male Irish nursing and midwifery graduates who graduated in 2013 earned €30 per week more than female graduates one year after graduation. After 10 years this difference increased to €219 per week.
The difference was even more pronounced among medicine graduates. Male Irish medicine graduates who graduated in 2013 earned €26 per week more than female graduates one year after graduation. After 10 years this difference increased to €790 per week.
Place of Work
Approximately 70% of Irish medicine graduates and Irish nursing and midwifery graduates who graduated in 2013 worked in the public sector as their main employment 10 years after graduation.
We can also see that the region where most Irish nursing and midwifery graduates worked as of 2022 was the HSE Dublin & North East region with 1,506 of those who graduated between 2010 and 2017 working there. The region where the least Irish nursing and midwifery graduates worked in 2022 was the HSE Midwest region with 603 of those who graduated between 2010 and 2017 working there."
Commenting further on how this release was developed, Rob Kelly, Senior Statistician, said: “This release was produced using a statistical framework known as the Educational Longitudinal Database (ELD) developed by the CSO. This framework is produced by matching datasets from the Education sector to other public sector datasets which describe graduate outcomes in subsequent years. In this regard, the CSO treats all data with strict confidentiality and never discloses any data that could subsequently be associated with any person or business. We have compiled these new statistics using anonymised records and will only produce statistical results at an aggregate level. This means no individual can ever be identified from the data we utilise.”