The Graduate Market in 2015
Graduate Starting Salaries in 2015 Although the median starting salary for new graduates joining the UK’s leading employers has risen for the second year running, there continues to be a very wide disparity in the salaries available from individual organisations in 2015. Three major employers are offering new graduates £20,000 or less, and yet at the very top of the market, four well-known investment banks are providing basic salaries of up to £50,000 this year and almost a third of graduate programmes at the leading employers now pay more than £35,000 (see Chart 3.3 ). Away from the City, the highest published salaries are again at Aldi, which pays graduates training to become area managers a first-year salary of £42,000, and the European Commission, where new graduates are paid a starting salary of £41,500. By sector, the highest-paying UK graduate employers in 2015 are again the investment banks and law firms (see Chart 3.2 ). Following increases in starting salaries at several leading law firms and the ‘Big Four’ accounting & professional services firms over the last two years, the median salary for new graduates joining the legal sector has now risen by £2,000 since 2013 and by £1,000 for trainee accountants. The median starting salary available to new graduates is set to rise in a total of six sectors this year (see Table 3.3 ). Despite the fact that graduates leaving English universities in 2015 are the first to have paid tuition fees of up to £9,000-a-year for their degrees, there is little evidence that this year’s graduate starting salaries have increased because of this – most employers that have stepped-up their graduate pay recently appear to have done so in order to compete with other employers, either in their sector or beyond. Chart 3.2 Industries or Business Sectors with the highest Graduate Salaries in 2015
£45,000
Investment banking
£40,000
Law
£36,500
Banking & finance
£32,500
Oil & energy
£31,500
Consulting
£30,300
Armed Forces
Accounting & professional services
£30,000
£30,000
IT & telecommunications
£30,000
Media
£40,000
£15,000
£20,000
£25,000
£30,000 £35,000
£45,000
Median starting salaries
Source - The Graduate Market in 2015
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