Graduate employment statistics

We’ve learned over many years that it’s important to stay ahead of the curve.

To recruit at the most effective and competitive rates, it’s crucial to know the ins and outs of the recruitment industry.

For example, if you identify an increased demand for remote working options, offering this as a job benefit is likely to increase applications.

There are always new trends in jobs and recruitment, and it’s impossible to stay on top of them all.

The best you can do is research the most pertinent patterns and think about ways that you can fit them into your own business strategy.

If you’re a FinTech firm, for instance, it’s best to focus on recruitment trends in financial services alongside trends in IT recruitment.

Our statistics are well-researched and detailed and they come directly from our own recruitment.

They’re an invaluable insight into the graduate employment market.

Even if you find out that you’re already working in line with emerging resourcing trends, it’s always good to know that you’re doing things right!

Keeping up with trends in graduate recruitment involves a mix of research, networking, and staying updated with industry publications and reports from the likes of Give a Grad a Go.

With our consistent reports, we’re quick to report on trending shifts in recruitment from our unique vantage.

As one of the UK’s leading graduate recruitment services, we are well-positioned to give sector-specific insights into the graduate hiring space.

With 500k+ candidates registered to our platform, we’re able to gather data and survey feedback from an incredibly large talent pool.

Where better to find out about trends in the recruitment industry than a company at the frontline of graduate recruitment?

Download our graduate job statistics UK report to find expert insight.

There are lots of trends getting noticed in the graduate employment space at the moment.

One such trend is the rising concern for employee satisfaction. Recently, companies have instilled an extremely important (and arguably quite overdue) focus on employee experience in the workplace.

With the rise of flexible and hybrid working, businesses are understanding the significance of these factors in securing and retaining the best talent. In such a talent-led market, it is hard to keep hold of your best employees.

Acknowledging the value that employees place on hybrid working models is, for many, the key to realising a robust employee retention strategy.

You can find more information about what trends have been getting noticed through the years in our employment statistics archive.

Download our graduate employment statistics documents to find all the answers you’re looking for.

The latest figures in recruitment reflect a graduate jobs market that is still recovering from the effects of the pandemic and adapting to the cost of living crisis.

An interesting new trend that has emerged amongst graduate job seekers is the increased desire to stay in a role for a long period of time.

According to our research, over 80% of participants see themselves staying in a graduate role for at least 2 years and 30% expect to stay in the job for 5+ years.

This is why it s important for employers to think early on about where they see graduates progressing.

In terms of what the latest trends actually are, first-round interviews are now undertaken virtually by many companies. It speeds up the recruitment process, increases candidate engagement and improves accessibility.

To find out the newest graduate employment trends of the past year, make sure to return to this page for the release of our bi-annual statistics report.

Fully comprehending the implications of new hiring patterns is only possible when you have the context of past trends.

For instance, whilst it’s useful to know what percentage of graduates are unemployed at the present moment, knowing whether employment rates are higher or lower than in past years provides a fuller picture.

In the same vein, statistics are only actionable within wider context. It’s important to know whether something is a trend or a fluke.

The most common graduate jobs one month may not correlate with the general trend of the past year, indicating an anomaly rather than a trend.

As a leading voice in graduate recruitment, we’re proud to offer an extensive archive of employment statistics dating back to 2015.

For information on how graduate markets were affected by the pandemic, check out our recruitment industry trends 2020 report.

To predict what kind of future trends will take hold of the recruitment industry, you have to review commonalities of past years.

By comparing the graduate labour market statistics 2020 and recruitment industry trends 2021/2 with new trends in recruitment 2023, it’s clear that the demand for remote working is not going to diminish any time soon.

However, with the majority of graduates now favouring a workplace with some variation between autonomy and collaboration, it is fair to predict that a hybrid working environment will become highly attractive to job seekers.

With the cost of living constantly on the incline, it is also fair to make the prediction that employers will need to offer higher salaries to appear competitive in the graduate jobs market.

If you are a startup with a tighter budget, don’t let these predictions concern you. Where we see the best retention at the moment, and likely in the future, is at companies that have invested in training and progression opportunities.

Being able to make predictions about job trends of the future will enable you to get ahead of the curve with your employment strategy.

Not sure how to implement trends into your hiring plans? Get in touch with our team!

All of our UK job statistics reports contain information on graduate salary statistics. We source our salary recruitment stats internally from our D&I salary survey and hiring data. This enables us to gather insights on recruiting salaries directly from one of the largest UK graduate talent pools.

Looking for an average salary survey? Our UK employment statistics reports cover the average graduate salary by industry. From Finance to Marketing & PR, our bi-annual reports provide information on salary range, average salary and top 3 job functions. Plus, our employment statistics UK archive dates back to 2015, so you can spot changes to average salaries and predict new hiring trends.

For qualitative statistics on graduate employment & salaries, check out our D&I survey. We ask: “What changes do you think employers can make to encourage a more inclusive workplace?” The majority of candidates placed ‘equal salary for similar positions’ as the top answer. If you’re using our salary statistics UK to inform your graduate pay, it’s important to take these D&I insights into account.

Find our salary stats in the labour force survey reports listed above.

Showing hiring trends by month often does not provide a complete or meaningful picture of employment UK statistics.

1. Seasonal variations: Many industries and businesses have seasonal fluctuations in hiring. If you only look at hiring by month, you may see spikes and dips that are largely driven by these seasonal patterns, which might not reflect broader economic trends.
2. Short-term noise: Monthly data can be noisy and subject to short-term fluctuations due to various factors such as holidays, economic events, or even weather-related issues. These short-term variations can obscure longer-term trends and make it difficult to draw meaningful conclusions.
3. Statistical significance: Monthly figures may not provide a statistically significant sample size for recruitment data analytics. To draw robust conclusions, it’s often more meaningful to look at data over longer time periods, such as quarterly or yearly trends.

As such, we choose to show bi-annual reporting on recruitment market trends. This enables us to provide you with employment trends by industry but with a holistic overview of the graduate employment market.

With the ever-evolving nature of the graduate job market, new hiring trends are constantly emerging. Our research is UK focused; Whilst we can’t comment on global hiring trends, we’ve got interesting national insights for 2023:

• In 2023, we’ve seen an increased desire for salary transparency – 79% of grads are more likely to apply for jobs that display the salary.
• As a likely consequence of the pandemic, 85% of graduates are now seeking jobs that offer some sort of remote working option.

In terms of internal stats, such as how many applicants per job we receive or what our average time to hire in the UK is:

• It takes our recruitment team 20 days to fill a role, compared to the 40 day national average.
• On average, we receive upwards of 250+ applications per job role live on our site in 2023.
• 96% of our placed candidates pass probation, with 91% of clients using our services to hire again.

These employment trends examples are taken from our recruitment statistics UK report. For more detailed hiring stats – including hiring trends by industry – view our latest graduate employment report for H1 2023 here.

We understand the importance of providing D&I stats to help businesses improve their hiring practices for diversity.

Employers are responsible for ensuring equal opportunity for all individuals. By monitoring hiring bias statistics, businesses can identify potential issues in their hiring practices to avoid discrimination and build a more inclusive workplace.

Key diversity and inclusion job hiring statistics:

• 88% of graduates are more inclined to work for a diverse company
• Ethnicity was the main factor (61%) for which candidates felt overlooked for a job
• Equal salary for the same position, mentoring schemes and equal opportunities were the top 3 changes suggested to create a more inclusive workplace.*

In terms of looking at our internal employment statistics by race, 46% of our candidates identify as being from Asian, Black, mixed, or other ethnic backgrounds.

If you want a closer look at stats on diversity, check out our diversity and inclusion survey.

*These statistics are taken from our 2020 D&I survey.