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, 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
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:
- Aldi, which offers a £44,000 starting salary and a fully expensed car
- Lidl, supply chain graduate programme, paying £37,000
- KPMG, advertising its grad schemes kicking off this September for Audit, Consulting, and Tax
- Sage is advertising graduate openings for testers, developers, DevOps, administrators, machine learning engineers & more
- Galliford Try, currently advertising its 2022 Graduate Programme
- Nottingham Trent University graduate development programme, with advertised salaries of £23,500
- Jacobs
- ey, which also offers a metaverse-based student recruitment programme of events
- Teach First, with applications open for its Autumn Institute
- Deloitte graduate programme
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 |
