This report focuses on a research project funded by the Early Childhood Studies Degrees Network (ECSDN) into the Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) sector’s perception of students on placement, graduates in the workforce and the Early Childhood Graduate Practitioner Competencies (ECGPCs). Previous research has already highlighted the benefits of a graduate workforce and its impact on the provision of high-quality education and care which achieves the best outcomes for young children. However, there has been limited appetite for policy makers to reflect the wider need for graduates in non-compulsory provision. Policy mandates that a level 3 vocational accreditation is sufficient to work with young children, which contrasts with other age phases of education where a graduate level qualification is required. Our research aims were: to explore the ECEC sector’s perspectives of which kind of skills ECS graduates need to have; and to ascertain how to embed these skills in the ECS degrees. We focused on the following outcomes: to consider what a graduate ‘looks like’ and, what ECS degrees offer to the sector; to identify implications for the teaching of ECS degrees and the inclusion of Early Childhood Graduate Practitioner Competencies within ECS degree programmes; to inform HEIs delivering ECS degrees to refine/tailor their offer to current and prospective students, in order to provide degree programmes which have better routes into employment; and, to open up an ongoing dialogue between the ECEC sector and HEI’s offering this vocational component of ECS degrees. We took a mixed methodological approach and conducted a survey that included quantitative and qualitative questions (number of participants 105) and qualitative semi-structured interviews (number of participants 16).