Executive Summary

In July 2009, the Society of Radiographers (SoR) surveyed current students and recent graduates from radiography programmes to gather information about their motivations, finances and experiences. Nearly 600 respondents answered a range of questions in an online questionnaire about the reasons they chose radiography, their finances during and after their degree and their experiences in their first job. This document presents an analysis of this survey and the following bullet points highlight the main findings:

• Financial motivations were less important to students when deciding to study radiography than an interest in the career, job security and career development.
• The most common reasons some students did not complete their course were because they had made the wrong career choice or found the course too difficult.
• Student debt continues to be a concern: 78% of respondents had used some form of credit to fund their studies; the average respondent was in debt or was expecting to be by between £5,000 and £10,000 on the date of their graduation; and around 30% said they were or expected to be over £10,000 in debt on graduation.
• Given four options for alternative funding of radiography students, around half of the respondents preferred the option of employing healthcare students in the NHS for the length of their course.
• The job market for recent graduates remains strong: as of July, 76% of 2009 graduates had arranged their first job and 86% of 2008 graduates had started their first job within 2 months of graduating
• 2008 graduates were overwhelmingly positive in their assessment of their first year working as a qualified radiographer; over 90% agreed or strongly agreed that their career was so far consistent with their expectations.

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