To What Degree? Recovering Changes in the Uk's Graduate Skill Distribution

University graduates have very di⁄erentiated skills, both compared to the general population and to other graduates. Di⁄erences arise from di⁄erences in background, course of study and individual aptitudes and interests. In this paper I study the distribution of these di⁄erent skills, investigating what types of skills graduates have, and how these vary between and within broadly de ned subject groups as well as across time. To this end I develop a model of occupational choice and wage determination for university graduates in the UK. Graduates di⁄er with regards to two types of general skills: mathematical/technical and verbal/organisatorial, which are used with di⁄erent intensities by di⁄erent occupations. I structurally estimate the model to nd evidence of changing multivariate skill distributions over time. I nd that between 1994 and 2019, the typical graduate s level of mathematical skills increased by 140% while verbal skills decreased by close to a third. Looking closer at 5 di⁄erent major subject categories, I nd that this trend is driven by increasing specialisation for STEM and Business & Economics degrees and increasing generalisation among Arts & Humanities and Other Subjects. For most graduates mathematical/technical skills have become the single biggest contributing factor to their earnings, making up around 50% of their hourly wage compared to 27% in the mid-90 s. Counterfactual simulations suggest that in the absence of changes to the subject speci c skill distributions, mean wages would be up to 8% lower, while wage inequality would be up to 5% larger. The results suggest that graduate skill supply has adjusted to changing labour market requirements