The Graduate Market in 2015
Graduates Recruited in 2014 The last six years have certainly been a turbulent time for the graduate job market. Although nearly a quarter of graduate vacancies at the UK’s best-known employers were cut at the start of the recession in 2008 and 2009, employment prospects for university-leavers improved considerably over the following two years, but dipped again during the 2012 recruitment season before recovering once more in 2013. At the start of the 2013-2014 graduate recruitment season in September 2013, it was clear that a much more buoyant mood had returned, with the leading employers preparing to hire 1,000 additional new recruits in 2014, compared with their graduate recruitment in 2013. As the recruiting round unfolded, this confidence grew and employers’ graduate recruitment targets increased further during the season. In January 2014, recruiters were expecting the annual rise in recruitment would be at least 8% and by July 2014, the final estimate put the growth in graduate jobs at more than 12% (see Chart 2.2 ). This is the first time since before the recession that recruitment targets had risen at each stage of the recruitment season and the considerable optimism amongst employers meant that by the summer of 2014, recruiters in eleven out of thirteen key industries expected that their graduate intake would be higher than in 2013. By autumn 2014, a total of 18,129 graduates started work with the organisations featured in The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers – an annual increase of more than 1,300 graduates, compared with recruitment in 2013 (see Table 2.4 ). This is a lower figure than had been predicted in July 2014 and it is clear that in several sectors vacancies were left unfilled, either because graduates turned down job offers or reneged on offers they had accepted, or because the late change in recruitment targets had made it impossible to source additional graduates in time. Some recruiters also commented that increased competition from other recruiters and a lack of quality applications had made it difficult to fill all their vacancies. Almost three-quarters of the unfilled graduate vacancies were at accounting & professional services firms, in the public sector and the Armed Forces. Had all the available vacancies in 2014 been filled successfully, the annual increase in recruitment would have been 12.3%. Chart 2.2 How Graduate Recruitment Targets Changed during 2014
Recruitment Targets for 2014 Published in September 2013
17,901 graduate vacancies
Recruitment Targets for 2014 Revised in January 2014
18,264 graduate vacancies
Recruitment Targets for 2014 Revised in July 2014
18,753 graduate vacancies
Actual Graduates Recruited in 2014 Confirmed in December 2014
743 unfilled
18,129 graduates recruited
vacancies
15,000
0
10,000
20,000
5,000
Graduate vacancies at Britain’s top employers in 2014
Source - The Graduate Market in 2015
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