More than 6,200 graduate in 2024, NSO says

Friday, 12 December 2025, 11:04 Last update: about 10 months ago

Tertiary-level graduates totalled 6,210 during 2024, an increase of 6.5% over the previous year, the National Statistics Office (NSO) said Friday.

This includes graduates from formal education programmes with a minimum duration of one semester of full-time study (or the equivalent in part-time) and that are delivered from Malta. Graduates are included irrespective of whether they are residing in Malta or abroad. The population of educational institutions considered include institutions delivering formal education programmes from Malta, whether online or face-to-face, at tertiary level.

More than half of tertiary graduates (57.3%) were females, who surpassed males in almost all levels of tertiary education except for ISCED 8 (Doctoral or equivalent), where they were equally distributed. For every 100 male graduates, there were 134 female graduates. An increase was also reflected in the total number of educational institutions offering tertiary education during this reference year.

The largest share of tertiary graduates attained a qualiﬁcation at ISCED Level 6 (Bachelor's or equivalent) (55.2%). This was followed by 34.4% of total tertiary graduates who attained a qualiﬁcation at ISCED Level 7 (Master's or equivalent).

The majority of tertiary-level graduates was made up of persons aged between 20 and 29 years (70.6%). Foreign graduates totalled 2,136, equivalent to 34.4% of total tertiary-level graduates, increasing by 8.2 percentage points over the previous year. Non-EU citizens comprised the largest proportion of all foreign tertiary graduates (56.3%). During 2024, 78.6% of graduates attained a qualification from a full-time programme, whilst graduates from part-time programmes decreased by 18.7% over the previous year.

The graduates in ISCED levels 6 (Bachelor's or equivalent) and 7 (Master's or equivalent) were mainly Maltese (68.7% and 71.7%, respectively), whilst in ISCED levels 5 (Short-cycle tertiary education) and 8 (Doctoral or equivalent), the majority of graduates were foreign nationals (72.8% and 67.1%, respectively).

The 'Business, administration and law' ﬁeld of study was the most popular field amongst tertiary graduates in 2024, accounting for a third of the total at 33.8%. This field was also the most popular field among graduates in ISCED levels 6, 7 and 8. The field 'Health and welfare' was the second most popular field of study among graduates at 22.3%, and it was the most popular field among graduates in ISCED level 5. 'Agriculture, forestry, fisheries and veterinary' was the least popular field of study among tertiary graduates, amounting to 0.4%.

Most of the graduates in ISCED levels 5, 6 and 7 were graduating from state-run institutions, whilst at ISCED level 8, the majority of graduates were from independently-run institutions. The fields of study "Agriculture, forestry, fisheries and veterinary" and "Education" were largely composed of Maltese graduates (96% and 93.7%, respectively).

In 2024, 12.9% of graduates attained a qualification in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Of these, 534 were males while 264 were females. Female STEM graduates decreased by 2.9% over the previous year, while male STEM graduates decreased by 4.1%.