are each up more than twenty places in this year’s Top 100 . Vodafone has had the most significant fall of the year, dropping thirty-three places from 52nd place in 2023 to 85th place and the Unlocked prison officers programme, which was last year’s highest- climber, has dropped back twenty-nine places to 51st place. Other graduate employers ranked lower in 2024 include Deutsche Bank, consultants Bain & Company and Airbus, who have each fallen at least twenty-five places this year. For the first time ever, there are no new entries this year, but nine previously-ranked employers have re-entered the Top 100 , the highest being for television company ITV, which returns in 46th place. Law firm Irwin Mitchell reappears in 77th place and, following a three- year absence, the RAF is ranked again, in 81st place in 2024. There are a further six re-entries, for Transport for London, the BMW Group, consumer goods company Nestlé, consultants Oliver Wyman, computing company Arm, and the multinational drinks giant Diageo. With all three of the Armed Forces in the new Top 100 , it is interesting to see that for the first time in twenty-six years, the Royal Navy – which is now in 42nd place – has been ranked ahead of the British Army, which has dropped to its lowest-ever ranking of 53rd place. Among the graduate employers departing the Top 100 in 2024 are Frontline, the children’s social work graduate programme, which is unranked for the first time since its launch a decade ago. Other employers leaving the rankings this year include law firm CMS, Channel 4, technology consultants Kubrick, consumer goods manufacturers Johnson & Johnson, Mercedes, Cancer Research UK, engineering consultants Arcadis, and insurance company Aviva. Since the original edition of The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers was published a quarter of a century ago, just three organisations have made it to number one in the rankings. Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) held on to the top spot for the first four years, beginning in 1999, and its success heralded a huge surge in popularity for careers in consulting. At its peak in 2001, almost one in six graduates applied for jobs in the sector. In the year before the firm changed its name from Andersen Consulting to Accenture, it astutely introduced a new graduate package that included a £28,500 starting salary (a sky-high
Across the full survey sample, final year students named more than 1,500 different organisations, from well-known national and international organisations to small and medium-sized regional and local employers. The responses were analysed and the one hundred organisations that were named most often make up The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers for 2024. In one of the closest votes in the twenty-six year history of the annual rankings, the accounting & professional services firm PwC has retained its place as the UK’s leading graduate employer for the second year running, but by the narrowest of margins. This is the seventeenth time that the firm has been the country’s number one graduate employer and 6 per cent of final year students from the ‘Class of 2024’ voted for the firm. After four years as the number one graduate employer, the Civil Service – best-known for its prestigious Fast Stream programme – moved down into second place in 2023 and despite a substantial increase in its vote this year, it remains at number two in 2024 too. The NHS and the accounting & professional services firms Deloitte and EY are each unchanged in third, fourth and sixth places respectively. The BBC has moved into the top five, its best ranking for seventeen years, and J.P. Morgan is ranked in seventh place, the highest-ever position for an investment bank in Top 100 . Google has dropped back to eighth place, its lowest for a decade, but Barclays is up again, ahead of the retailer Aldi which is in tenth place this year. KPMG, the accounting & professional services firm, has slipped out of the top ten for the first time, but Lloyds Banking Group climbs to 12th place – the bank’s best ranking yet – up from 40th place just three years ago. Pharmaceuticals company AstraZeneca has returned to the top twenty, in its highest- ever position, overtaking rivals GSK which has dropped back to 20th place. And Amazon, which was one of the fastest-climbing employers ever in The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers , has fallen out of the top twenty this year. Within the new Top 100 , the year’s highest climbers are led by the investment managers BlackRock, which has leapt forty-two places to 37th place, up from 79th place in 2023. Enterprise Mobility, the car and van hire company, has had a similar rise, jumping thirty-eight places to 59th place. Engineering consultants WSP, oil & energy company Shell and law firm Latham & Watkins
TOP 100 GRADUATE EMPLOYERS 13
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