A Computer Science degree from Oxford University is Britain’s most valuable bachelors qualification #NationalCodingWeek

With 400,000 ‘freshers’ due to start university in the coming weeks*, leading job search engine Adzuna has used data from over 500,000** CVs to create a new “Value My Degree” tool which helps students determine their earning potential following graduation, and even identify what roles they’re most likely to land.

By selecting the qualification type, institution and course name, the tool offers the user an instant BA, MA or PhD ‘valuation’; revealing the average salary earned by those with the same qualification, 60 months (or five years) after they graduated. The tool uses text mining & machine learning methods to cross analyse this insight against average UK salaries to produce an overall degree valuation. 

‘Value My Degree’ also reveals the most common jobs associated with each qualification – again based on CV data from graduates – and even shows how the salary ‘value’ compares with other institutions.

So which degree subjects are the most valuable?

The course with the highest value across all institutions and qualification levels (Bachelor’s, MA or PhD) is Software Engineering, with the vast majority of graduates moving into Web development and App Development roles. The average Web Developer salary is £45,395 per annum. This is 32.1% above the national average advertised salary of £34,355. 

Computer Science is in second place, with the majority of graduates moving into Software Development positions five years after graduating. The degree is an appealing option for students with over 25,000 Software Development positions currently available in the UK with an average salary of £50,568.

Finance degrees round out the top three, with graduates moving into analytical or management roles five years after leaving university. There are 33,194 analyst positions available in the UK right now with an average salary of £42,847.

The top 10 most valuable degree subject in the U.K:

The 10 least valuable degree subject in the U.K:

Top Ten Highest Earning Qualifications in the U.K (based on 60 months’ work experience):

Degree and University combinations with the highest earning potential in the U.K:

Andrew Hunter, co-founder of Adzuna, comments:

“With the average UK salary sitting at £25,844 p.a. in 2019*** it could be worrying for some students to see their potential salary falling below this, even after gaining an expensive qualification and working for several years. Many students are now leaving university with debts amounting to £27,000**** you wouldn’t blame them for wanting to see better return on their investment.

“This discrepancy between average salaries of graduates, and the cost of higher education clearly explains why four in ten UK adults (39%) believe university tuition fees should be mostly covered by the government.

“At this time of year, school leavers and college students need to start making some tough decisions about their future and the career path they want to follow. Whilst there is an array of options and opportunities out there, there isn’t enough insight into the impact a degree can have on career prospects. In building this tool, we wanted to help students gain a better understanding of the options available to them and what that could mean for their future.”

Methodology: The data analysed is from CVs uploaded via the Value My CV tool. These were checked for relevant qualification and removed from if none applied or we were not able to extract the qualification level, institution or course details. 84,213 contained all the required data and were used for training the model.

Adzuna analysed the data from over 1 million CV’s and developed unique algorithms to model the complex patterns in the data. We use text mining to extract a wide range of information including work history, education and skills from CV’s. We run this information through our algorithms to get a statistical estimate of your market value.

Then Adzuna extracted education and job information from 686,720 UK CV’s. Using machine learning methods, Adzuna modeled how the average salary after five years work experience varies depending on the institution and course, to help students make the right decisions when it comes to choosing an institution or a course. 

Adzuna used this methodology to identify the main professions graduates move into within the first five years of work, to establish the opportunities associated with each qualification. The tool covers 152 of the 166 institutions across the UK, and 58 courses.