Doctoral employability and early-career pathways in UK higher education: a scoping review and integrative framework

Doctoral career pathways have become increasingly diverse and uncertain, as opportunities extend beyond academia while academic employment remains constrained. These developments have intensified expectations that doctoral education should prepare researchers for broader careers, yet UK evidence remains fragmented across studies of career aspirations and intentions, employability development, career support and early-career outcomes. As a result, integrated understanding of how doctoral researchers evaluate and revise their career futures across the doctorate-to-work transition remains limited. This scoping review synthesises 28 studies published between 2010 and 2026: 12 classified as preference-focused, 9 as outcome-focused and 7 as integrated. The findings indicate that doctoral employability is shaped through interactions among structural conditions, institutional mediation and preference formation. Destination data alone provide limited insight into how doctoral researchers understand and revise career futures as institutional, labour-market and personal conditions change. The evidence base remains concentrated in England and research-intensive institutions, with limited longitudinal research connecting future-oriented career thinking during candidature with subsequent employment pathways. The review develops employability preference as an analytic concept for interpreting how career futures are judged in relation to desirability, feasibility and sustainability.