This field records the graduate's UK mobile telephone number

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This field captures a personal UK mobile telephone number for the graduate.

Providers should be focused on returning the best contact details that they hold for a graduate, therefore, it is recommended that a maximum of 3 contact details are returned for each of the different types of contact detail. All contact details should be current and be the personal contact details for the graduate as provided and verified by that graduate. What we also mean by ‘best’ is the supply of contact details that are most likely to elicit a response to the survey. This can be determined by recent contact with the graduate via this contact detail.

Mobile numbers are more likely to result in successful contact and therefore, they are called before landlines, followed by international numbers (where applicable). Graduates with a HOMEEUOS = 3 (Overseas) will not be called but we will use the UK mobile number for sending SMS texts with a link to the survey.

(HOMEEUOS is a flag used to identify graduates’ home domicile using the derived fields in the C20051 Student return and the C20054 Student Alternative return).

Mobile telephone numbers for the following third parties are not permitted: Agents or recruitment agency, companies that support international students studying abroad, referees (e.g. for UCAS), sponsors, university lecturers / academics, international study centre, dummy mobile numbers.

Submission of shared mobile numbers is not best practice. Where there is a genuine reason for the provision of shared contact data, providers will need to request for a switch to be applied.

Validation in the provider portal will identify duplicate contact details.

A UK mobile number must start with 071, 072, 073, 074, 075, 076, 077, 078 or 079 and have at least 10 digits. If you have instances of numbers beginning with 070, they must not be returned in this field, instead being returned in UKTEL. This is due to 070 numbers being predominately used as call forwarding or temporary numbers for businesses, which we do not wish to engage with via SMS as this may result in survey access by a third party.

For graduates with a HOMEEUOS = 1 or 2 at least one telephone number (Graduate.UKTEL, Graduate.UKMOB or Graduate.INTTEL) needs to be returned to enable HESA to have the best possible opportunity to contact the graduate. It is recommended that providers return upto 3 legitimate telephone numbers as are given to them by the graduate. For graduates with HOMEEUOS = 3 we would encourage you to return a UKMOB number for sending SMS texts with a link to the survey.

View more guidance on the creation of accurate personal contact details.