Graduate Job Market Best for Five Years
There has been a sharp rise in vacancies, with this year’s graduates facing the best
employment prospects for five years, according to the latest review of the graduate
job market.
The study, carried out every year by High Flyers Research, looks at graduate
vacancies and salaries amongst the top 100 graduate recruiters, including Airbus,
BT and HSBC - all of which are ‘anchor’ companies in Wales. Many of these leading
‘blue chip’ employers run graduate recruitment and training programmes.
The survey reveals that graduate recruitment is up in nine out of thirteen key sectors,
with the armed forces and the public sector amongst the leading recruiters of
graduates along with law, banking and professional services.
However, just three sectors have increased their graduate vacancies significantly
since the start of the recession. These are IT & telecommunications firms, high-street
retailers and leading public sector employers.
The survey warns of intense competition from new and recent graduates, with
leading employers receiving 46 applications for each graduate vacancy.
Over a third of this year’s graduate vacancies will be filled by graduates who have
already worked for recruiting organisations either through internships, work
experience placements or vacation work. This demonstrates the importance of
having experience in the world-of-work and being able to demonstrate employability
skills to employers.
Martin Birchall, Managing Director, High Fliers Research, commented:
“It’s great news for the ‘Class of 2013’ leaving university this summer that graduate
recruitment at Britain’s top employers is now at its highest level for five years and
that many of the country’s best-known organisations are set to expand their graduate
vacancies even further in 2014.”
The survey shows that the median graduate starting salary amongst major graduate
recruiters is £29,000 a year and has remained at this level for four years. Public
sector employers will pay an average of £22,200 for new graduate starters. This is
the lowest of all the main sectors. Of those newly recruited into graduate positions,
62 per cent earn less than £30,000 a year and just two per cent will start on less than
£20,000 a year.
London remains the main ‘hot spot’ for graduate recruitment, with 84 per cent of the
top 100 graduate recruiters having vacancies there. However, 42 per cent of the top
100 graduate recruiters have vacancies available in Wales in 2013.
The leading graduate employers tended to focus their graduate recruitment efforts at
a limited number of universities. Cardiff was the only Welsh university in the top 25 at
which employers focused their efforts. Other popular universities targeted by the top
graduate employers included Bristol, Manchester and Birmingham.
The survey also found that leading graduate recruiters were working closely with
university careers services and using specific graduate recruitment websites, such
as Milkround and Prospects, to promote their vacancies. In addition, there been a
rise in the use of social media including Facebook and Twitter as a means of
promoting graduate vacancies.
The findings of the survey have been published
in ‘The Graduate Market in 2013’ which can be
found at the following link:
http://www.highfliers.co.uk/download/GMReport13.pd
f
£29,00 is the median starting
salary at 100 “leading graduate
employers” surveyed by High
Fliers Research. However , the
overall median wage for graduate
starters, according to the Higher
Education Statistics Agency is
£20,000
The Welsh Government is seeking to expand and broaden the use of Labour Market
Intelligence (LMI) across Wales. This is part of a regular series of newsletters and
articles which are available on the Learning and Skills Observatory website
www.learningobservatory.com. If you have any comments about the sort of LMI that
you'd like to receive or how LMI has been of benefit to you, we'd like to hear from
you. For further information about the Welsh Government LMI project contact
[email protected].