Appendix
Demographics
A range of proprietary QS data was used to inform this report, drawing on international student insights, rankings data, employer insights and QS data and third-party data from the QS World Future Skills Index.
QS International Student Survey
The QS International Student Survey is the largest global survey of its kind, and it has been guiding international recruitment strategies for over a decade by revealing the preferences and motivations of prospective international students. 146,619 prospective international students responded to the QS International Student Survey 2024, from 196 countries and territories.
QS Sustainability Student Survey 2024
1,792 students from 124 countries shared their views on sustainability and how it relates to their future studies, through a pulse survey on topuniversities.com in September 2024.
Future 17 student survey, powered QS 1Mentor
QS 1Mentor collated data on 122 Future 17 students and 106 pre-Future 17 respondents from 4 distinct educational stages and 14 main educational fields, to determine their employability outlook and confidence in determining skills.
QS World University Rankings: Sustainability
The QS World University Rankings: Sustainability assesses universities on their ability to tackle the world’s greatest environmental, social and governance (ESG) challenges. 1,744 institutions feature in the 2025 edition, across 3 categories, 9 lenses and 52 indicators.
QS Global Employer Survey
Representing the largest employer survey of its kind, the QS Global Employer Survey gathers insights from a wide range of employers who provide valuable feedback on skills and graduate satisfaction. From 2021-2024, the QS Global Employer Survey has collated over 105,450 responses from employers in over 170 countries.
QS World Future Skills Index
A range of proprietary QS data and third-party data informs the four indicators in the QS World Future Skills Index: Academic Readiness, Economic Transformation, Future of Work and Skills Fit make up equal weighting of a country’s final score. The following data is used across the four indicators:
Skills Fit: QS Global Employer Survey, the largest of its kind, and data from the World Bank Group
Academic Readiness: QS World University Rankings by Subject and population size
Future of Work: QS proprietary skills taxonomy including 30,000+ unique skills, 9,500 unique skills assessed for Digital, AI and Green skills, over 180m skills referenced in 280m job postings and the average growth YoY in digital, AI and green skills categories
Economic Transformation: Data from the World Bank Group, UNESCO Institute for Statistics and the Education Policy Institute