Understanding the Graduate Job Market
dramatically as the year progressed. The number of graduates recruited dropped by 14.6 per cent year- on-year – the largest annual fall since 2009 – and an even bigger reduction than during the Covid pandemic. In all, the UK’s leading employers took on 6,000 fewer graduates than they had originally expected to in 2024. Following the election, employer confidence has continued to worsen, with graduate recruitment decreasing by a further 5.1 per cent in 2025 and another 0.5 per cent in 2026. At the start of the 2026-2027 recruitment season, employers in The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers are predicting that they will have a total of 22,640 graduate vacancies for autumn 2027 start dates. This represents another disappointing cut in graduate recruitment – this time by 2.7 per cent year-on-year – and is an unprecedented fifth consecutive annual reduction in entry- level vacancies. The number of graduate jobs at the country’s top employers has now fallen by more than a quarter since 2022, taking graduate recruitment back to a level last recorded in 2010. Graduate recruitment is predicted to fall in ten out of fifteen key industries and business sectors in the next 12 months, with the biggest
over 700 planned vacancies were left unfilled. The final number of graduates recruited by employers featured in The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers in 2020 was 12.3 per cent lower than in 2019. Recruitment began to bounce back in 2021 with a substantial 9.4 per cent rise in entry-level vacancies – the ‘V-shaped’ pandemic recovery in the graduate job market largely mirroring the recovery in the wider economy. This strong growth gathered pace the following year when graduate vacancies increased in all fifteen industries and business sectors represented in The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers . The total number of graduate jobs available jumped by 14.5 per cent in 2022, the largest-ever year-on-year rise in recruitment at the UK’s leading employers. The 2023 graduate recruitment season began optimistically, with many of the country’s top employers expecting to match their bumper intake from the previous year. But as the year progressed, fears of a possible recession in the UK grew and graduate recruitment was cut back by 6.4 per cent, compared with 2022. With a General Election looming, the economic uncertainty increased substantially in 2024 and employers downgraded their recruitment targets
How Graduate Vacancies have Changed 2001-2026
p 14.5%
q 6.4%
p 6.2%
p 4.3%
p 1.6%
p 10.1%
p 7.9%
p 9.4%
p 10.8%
q 5.1%
p 2.5%
p 3.3%
q 4.9%
p 12.6%
p 10.9%
q 12.3%
q 14.6%
q 0.5%
q 6.7%
p 2.8%
q 0.8%
p 0.5%
q 6.5%
q 17.8%
q 8.3%
Source High Fliers Research 2001
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
2026 2024 2025
TOP 100 GRADUATE EMPLOYERS 27
Powered by FlippingBook