5th March 2022

Graduate employment statistics Q3 2019 📊

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Seasonally, Q3 represents the busiest quarter in graduate recruitment; and the record number of candidates who registered on the Give A Grad A Go website throughout July, August & September has enabled us to compile a significant amount of employment data on the graduate jobs market.

View our FREE graduate employability statistics report, with industry specific data, average salaries, gender ratios and the most common job roles.

Download statistics from Q3 2019

Click below to see our whole graduate employment statistics archive, with up to date data from this year, as well as insights dating back to 2015.

View our whole statistics archive

- 81% of graduates were hired into a different job to the one they initially applied for
- 64 different universities our clients hired from – download the report to find out more information on which UK universities and international universities they were
- 68% of graduates initially said they were open to ideas when it comes to industry
- 25% of graduates want a job with ‘Analyst’ in the title
- 0% of graduate starting salaries are now below £20,000
Find out more statistics in the graduate employment report.
Increase in graduate salaries

Across the board, the increase in average graduate starting salary in Q3 is a sure sign of the competitive nature of the market and rising living costs, particularly in London.
- Average graduate salary in Q3: £25,200
- Highest graduate salary in Q3: £65,000
- Lowest graduate salary in Q3: £20,000
Salary is not the most important factor in choosing a job

The position that candidates ranked salary on their list of ‘what is most important in a job’
- Learning and development
- Growth opportunities
- Salary
- Benefits and perks package
- Work/ life balance
- Culture
In order to hire the best graduates, many employers are focusing more on attraction and retention strategies.

Alongside basic salary and benefits, they have included additional perks and benefits such as flexible working and wellbeing initiatives.
The flowchart below demonstrates the graduate recruitment funnel from application to placement, based on graduate recruitment data collected in Q3 2019.

It also includes how many candidates were shortlisted, and how many interviews were arranged for each graduate job placement in Q3.

If you have more questions about the graduate recruitment process, please visit our Recruitment FAQs page.
In Q3 2019, employers hired graduates from a range of different universities internationally.

Top 10 UK universities
- University of Leeds
- University of Law
- Kings College London
- Newcastle University
- Unviersity of Birmingham
- University of Nottingham
- University College London
- University of Cambridge
- University of Oxford
- University of Bristol
Find out which other universities employers hired from in Q3 in the report.
Unsurprisingly, the digital direction in which UK businesses have been moving has meant that the demand for computing, data and technology skills has skyrocketed.

With the majority of employers now recognising the need for more technical skills in their business, they have looked to hire candidates to reflect this.

The net result is that we’re seeing more graduates applying to get into the tech sector.

For more technology trends and statistics on specific tech jobs, see pages 9 and 10 of the report.

In response to this growing need for technology skills, we have increased our engagement with relevant student societies at a number of the UK’s top universities.

Over the course of 2017-2019 we have sponsored several technology and STEM societies, including UCL Data Science Society, Manchester HackSoc, and Queen Mary Maths & Business Society.

What we’ve achieved with our clients in Q3

It has been a great quarter for Give A Grad a Go, here’s a summary of what we’ve achieved for our clients:

73% repeat business
131 different businesses we helped to grow
15 different sectors
194 careers we started in Q3
94% is our current probation pass rate

For the 5th year in a row, we’ve been shortlisted for an IRP Award; this year, we are up for ‘Best Company to work for (up to 50 employees)’.

Given that we won the award for ‘Best Company to work for ‘Up to 20 employees’ back in 2014, this is a clear indicator of how much we have grown over the course of the last 5 years.

The awards ceremony will take place on 29th November!

We’re also delighted to have made the finals of the National Online Recruitment Awards 2019 for best small agency, having won the category in 2018.

For over a decade, Give A Grad A Go have been providing insight into the graduate employment market; helping businesses of all shapes and sizes understand what graduates are looking for as they start their careers.

To find out more about our range of graduate recruitment services and how they can help your business, please get in touch today, or check out more of our employer hiring resources.

To see a breakdown of graduate employment statistics in each industry, click the links at the top of this page to receive our full graduate employment report, including graduate hiring data in the finance industry, marketing and IT sector – and much more!