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Stuart Gentle Publisher at Onrec

Grad salaries soar as employers jostle for talent

The Class of 2022 need not fear a downturn in the jobs market. Despite the high profile layoffs and crypto crash, job opportunities for graduates have grown strongly year-on-year and pay rates on offer are rising

  • 14,690 graduate job vacancies on offer across UK in May, up +59% year-on-year, as employers tap university leavers to plug staff gaps
  • Advertised graduate salaries rise 7% year-on-year to hit a six year high of £26,076
  • Over 36 graduates will compete for every job in the UK this summer
  • Employers offering pay of up to £70,000 for grads; Top companies hiring include Big Four, retailers Aldi and Lidl, and TeachFirst
  • Top 5 institutions by graduate earnings: Bayes Business School, Oxford, Imperial College, Cambridge, and UCL, all seeing grads earn £40k+ after 5 years

The Class of 2022 need not fear a downturn in the jobs market. Despite the high profile layoffs and crypto crash, job opportunities for graduates have grown strongly year-on-year and pay rates on offer are rising, according to new research from smarter job search engine Adzuna

May 2022 saw 14,690 graduate job vacancies advertised across the UK, +59% higher than 9,265 this time last year, as employers tap up new graduates to plug gaps in their workforces.

In a bid to attract talent, pay rates are also rising. Advertised salaries on offer for graduate openings have climbed to £26,076 in May 2022, up 7% year-on-year from £24,389. It marks a six year high in advertised salaries for graduates. Furthermore, in the most competitive sectors, pay rates have hit new heights, with salaries of up to £70,000 on offer.

Graph 1: Graduate job vacancies and advertised salaries since 2020*

*Full data set available upon request

However, competition for grad jobs remains hot. With around 540,000 UK students set to graduate this year according to figures from HESA, more than 36 graduates will be vying for every available opportunity in summer 2022.

Paul Lewis, chief customer officer at job search engine Adzuna, comments: "This is the strongest jobs market we’ve seen for graduates post-pandemic. Despite the negative headlines, plenty of sectors remain desperate for talent and looking to grads to fill those gaps. They’re well paid positions, too - with advertised salaries for graduate roles hitting a six year high and some sectors offering pay cheques up to £70k. It’s a welcome piece of good news for the Class of 2022, who battled remote learning and pandemic pressures over the last two years.”

10 of the top graduate employers hiring now, include:

Inflation busting graduate pay rates on offer

Crucially for grads concerned about the cost of living crisis being driven by high inflation, many employers have been raising the pay rates they offer.

In the law sector, European firms are struggling to keep up with their American counterparts. US legal firm Davis Polk & Wardwell has bumped up salaries for newly qualified solicitors (NQs) by 8.5% from £147,500 to £160,000, while its graduates earn £60,000. By comparison, Magic Circle firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is offering grads £50,000 in their first year, with NQs earning £125,000.

The same is true in banking, with Barclays offering their grads £50k, RBS £31,850, compared to JP Morgan at up to £70,000.

Other employers offering lucrative options include MI5 (starting salaries of £33,000) and BP at £35,000 - £45,000.

The most valuable grads in the UK

Adzuna also dug into which university graduates receive the highest compensation five years after graduation, based on an analysis of over 120,000 UK jobseeker CVs uploaded to Adzuna's ValueMyCV between 2019 and 2022. Text mining technology was used to look at the career pathways taken by recent grads, and the jobs they are working in 5 years after graduation, revealing average earnings across different institutions.

Oxford and Imperial are beating Cambridge University in terms of leavers’ earnings, with University of Oxford grads bringing in an average salary of £47,618 five years after graduation, compared to £45,741 for Imperial College grads and £44,190 for University of Cambridge grads. Oxford is second only to Bayes Business School leavers, formerly known as Cass Business School but renamed in September 2021 due to links with slavery.

The lowest earning grads meanwhile, studied at Aberystwyth University (£25,129), Bath Spa (£25,196) and Edge Hill (£25,334).

Paul Lewis continues: “The choice of university can massively impact earning potential, with students from the most prestigious institutions raking in over £20k more a year on average five years post graduation, compared to grads from lesser-known places of learning. For those wanting to earn big, London universities are good bets with grads from Imperial College, UCL, and King’s all top earners five years into their careers. Russell Group institutions also dominate the list, showing when it comes to earnings, the stamp of approval from a prestigious academic institution can still make all the difference.”

Table 1: Graduate salaries, by institution

University

Average salary, 5 years after graduation

Bayes Business School (formerly Cass)

£52,167

University of Oxford

£47,618

Imperial College

£45,741

University of Cambridge

£44,190

University College London

£40,866

Cranfield University

£39,695

Durham University

£39,147

University of Nottingham

£38,426

University of Edinburgh

£38,233

University of Reading

£37,430

King's College London

£37,324

University of Strathclyde

£37,043

University of Bath

£36,317

University of Manchester

£36,227

Robert Gordon University

£35,834

University of Warwick

£35,615

University of Huddersfield

£34,873

University of Southampton

£34,814

London School of Economics and Political Science

£34,772

Birkbeck, University of London

£34,716

Loughborough University

£34,591

University of Bristol

£34,094

City University

£33,988

Kingston University

£33,926

Queen Mary University of London

£33,675

University of Aberdeen

£33,670

University of Leicester

£33,640

Brunel University

£33,638

University of London

£33,588

Lancaster University

£33,180

University of York

£32,943

University of Exeter

£32,900

University of Bolton

£32,868

Aston University

£32,555

Cardiff University

£32,368

Oxford Brookes University

£32,347

Heriot-Watt University

£32,333

London Metropolitan University

£32,240

University of Brighton

£32,004

University of Hertfordshire

£31,862

University of West London

£31,860

University of Sussex

£31,783

Royal Holloway, University of London

£31,755

University of The West of England

£31,698

University of Stirling

£31,593

University of Surrey

£31,532

Cardiff Metropolitan University

£31,514

University of Glasgow

£31,395

University of East London

£31,360

University of Bedfordshire

£31,346

University of Birmingham

£31,248

Newcastle University

£31,244

University of Liverpool

£31,123

University of Dundee

£30,998

Plymouth University

£30,957

University of Hull

£30,830

University of Bradford

£30,703

The Open University

£30,701

De Montfort University

£30,689

University of Westminster

£30,637

Bournemouth University

£30,615

University of Plymouth

£30,591

BPP University

£30,580

University of Portsmouth

£30,579

University of Leeds

£30,506

Swansea University

£30,433

University of Greenwich

£30,430

University of East Anglia

£30,204

Northumbria University

£30,167

University of Kent

£30,089

Birmingham City University

£29,884

Middlesex University

£29,844

Anglia Ruskin University

£29,776

Edinburgh Napier University

£29,769

University of Sheffield

£29,688

Glasgow Caledonian University

£29,679

University of Essex

£29,676

Coventry University

£29,583

University for the Creative Arts

£29,552

University of Law

£29,181

London South Bank University

£29,147

University of Derby

£28,909

Sheffield Hallam University

£28,885

University of Central Lancashire

£28,778

University Of The Arts

£28,635

Nottingham Trent University

£28,632

Teesside University

£28,516

University of Salford

£28,065

University of Lincoln

£27,941

Southampton Solent University

£27,933

University of Wolverhampton

£27,816

University of Chester

£27,749

Staffordshire University

£27,734

Manchester Metropolitan University

£27,719

Canterbury Christ Church University

£27,564

University of Roehampton

£27,361

University of Sunderland

£27,308

Keele University

£27,239

University of South Wales

£27,232

Buckinghamshire New University

£26,986

Leeds Beckett University

£26,712

University of Northampton

£26,672

Ulster University

£26,548

Goldsmiths, University of London

£26,340

Bangor University

£26,315

Liverpool John Moores University

£25,749

Azad University

£25,715

Edge Hill University

£25,334

Bath Spa University

£25,196

Aberystwyth University

£25,129