Every Student counts: promoting numeracy and enhancing employability.

Over recent years, universities have prioritised the need to enhance the employability of their graduates. Initiatives aimed at achieving this have become embedded within institutions’ learning and teaching strategies and supporting policy documents. While the list of skills that employers desire of their graduate recruits is extensive, many employers highlight the importance of numeracy skills. For example, 500 members of the Institute of Directors (IoD) ranked ‘numeracy skills’ as the sixth most important out of a list of twenty-eight employability skills, and 98% of respondents considered them to be ‘very’ or ‘quite’ important. Similarly, following a survey of 233 employers, the Council for Industry and Higher Education (CIHE) reported that ‘numeracy’ was ranked ninth, with 68% of employers considering numeracy to be important.