I found this BBC article encouraging reading as a validation of the Ba (Hons), Learning, Technology and Research (BALTR) degree of Ultraversity at Anglia Ruskin University that equips researchers with the skills described, with academic rigor and much more.

In summary, the article is pointing up a discrepancy between the skills graduates possess and the skills employers require. Based on a survey by the ‘Association of Graduate Recruiters’, their chief executive, Carl Gilleard, said: “Employers are likely to be looking to graduates who can demonstrate softer skills such as team-working, cultural awareness, leadership and communication skills, as well as academic achievement.”

For the government, Mr Rammell said “the government understood this. That is why we have placed much emphasis on the growth of foundation degrees, because they are vocational higher education qualifications designed with employers.”

Foundation degrees take students to level 2 and are very much work based degrees similar in some ways to the BALTR.

In the same way as ‘A’ levels are the ‘gold standard’ of qualifications at 16-18 eclipsing GNVQ, I have no doubt that employers will be seeking Honours graduates, and that students who have worked hard for a foundation degree will in effect be forced to study another year somewhere to make up another 120 credits at level 3.