Researching The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers
PwC’s reign as the UK’s leading graduate employer represented a real renaissance for the entire accounting & professional services sector. Twenty years ago, a career in accountancy was often regarded as a safe, traditional employment choice, whereas today’s profession is viewed in a very di!erent light. The training required to become a chartered accountant is now seen as a prized business qualification, and the sector’s leading firms are regularly described as ‘dynamic’ and ‘international’ by undergraduates looking for their first job after university – and continue to dominate the annual graduate employer rankings. Sixteen years after first reaching number one, the Civil Service returned to the top spot in 2019. It has remained there for six of the past eight years, despite PwC regaining the number one position in the Top 100 rankings in 2023 and 2024. A total of 247 di!erent organisations have now appeared within The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers since its inception, and thirty-three of these graduate employers hold the inspiring
figure for graduates in 2000) and a much-talked- about £10,000 bonus, helping to assure the firm’s popularity, irrespective of its corporate branding. In 2003, after two dismal years in graduate recruitment when vacancies for university-leavers dropped by more than a fifth following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the Civil Service was named the UK’s leading graduate employer. Just twelve months later it was displaced by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accounting and professional services firm formed from the merger of Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand in 1998. At the time, the firm was the largest private sector recruiter of graduates, with an intake in 2004 of more than a thousand trainees. Now known simply as PwC, the firm remained at number one for an impressive fifteen years, increasing its share of the student vote from 5 per cent in 2004 to more than 10 per cent in 2007, and fighting o! the sti!est of competition from rivals Deloitte in 2008, when just seven votes separated the two employers.
Number Ones, Movers & Shakers in the Top 100
NUMBER ONES
2001 EUROPEAN COMMISSION (UP 36 PLACES) HIGHEST CLIMBING EMPLOYERS 1999 SCHLUMBERGER (UP 13 PLACES) 2000 CAPITAL ONE (UP 32 PLACES) HIGHEST CLIMBING EMPLOYERS 2004 J.P. MORGAN (UP 29 PLACES) 2005 TEACH FIRST (UP 22 PLACES) 2006 GOOGLE (UP 32 PLACES) 2007 PFIZER (UP 30 PLACES) 2009 CADBURY (UP 48 PLACES) 2010 ASDA (UP 41 PLACES) 2011 CENTRICA (UP 41 PLACES) 2012 NESTLÉ (UP 44 PLACES) 2008 CO-OPERATIVE GROUP (UP 39 PLACES) 2014 TRANSPORT FOR LONDON (UP 36 PLACES) 2015 DIAGEO, NEWTON (UP 43 PLACES) 2016 BANK OF ENGLAND (UP 34 PLACES) 2017 CANCER RESEARCH UK (UP 38 PLACES) 2013 DFID (UP 40 PLACES) 2002 WPP (UP 36 PLACES) 2003 ROLLS-ROYCE (UP 37 PLACES)
HIGHEST NEW ENTRIES
NUMBER ONES 1999 ANDERSEN CONSULTING 2000 ANDERSEN CONSULTING
1999 PFIZER (31st)
2001 MARCONI (36th) 2002 GUINNESS UDV (44th) 2000 MORGAN STANLEY (34th)
2001 ACCENTURE 2002 ACCENTURE 2003 CIVIL SERVICE
2003 ASDA (40th)
2004 PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS 2005 PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS 2006 PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS 2007 PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS 2008 PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS 2009 PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS 2010 PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS
2004 BAKER & MCKENZIE (61st)
2005 PENGUIN (70th) 2006 FUJITSU (81st)
2007 BDO STOY HAYWARD (74th)
2008 SKY (76th)
2009 BDO STOY HAYWARD (68th) 2010 SAATCHI & SAATCHI (49th)
2011 PWC 2012 PWC 2013 PWC 2014 PWC 2015 PWC 2016 PWC 2017 PWC 2018 PWC
2011 APPLE (53rd)
2012 EUROPEAN COMMISSION (56th)
2013 SIEMENS (70th) 2014 FRONTLINE (76th) 2015 DANONE (66th) 2016 SANTANDER (63rd) 2017 DYSON (52nd) 2018 ASOS (52nd) 2019 UNLOCKED (49th) 2020 CHANNEL FOUR (77th) 2022 BMW GROUP (66th) 2023 DLA PIPER (51st) 2021 BDO (49th)
2019 POLICE NOW (UP 43 PLACES) 2018 MCDONALD’S (UP 30 PLACES)
2021 CIVIL SERVICE 2020 CIVIL SERVICE 2019 CIVIL SERVICE 2022 CIVIL SERVICE
2021 CHARITYWORKS (UP 45 PLACES) 2022 JAGUAR LAND ROVER (UP 30 PLACES) 2020 DLA PIPER/WHITE & CASE (UP 32 PLACES)
2023 PWC 2024 PWC
2026 WSP (UP 44 PLACES) 2025 SIEMENS (UP 30 PLACES) 2023 UNLOCKED (UP 45 PLACES) 2024 BLACKROCK (UP 42 PLACES)
2024 ITV (46th)
2026 CIVIL SERVICE 2025 CIVIL SERVICE
2025 ENVIRONMENT AGENCY (46th)
2026 ARM (71st)
Source High Fliers Research
TOP 100 GRADUATE EMPLOYERS 15
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