Prospects Directory salary and vacancy survey

• Prospects Directory
• Scope of the survey
• Key findings
• Key findings by job category
• Key findings by type of employer
• Key findings by subject of study
• Caveats
• Footnote

Prospects Directory

This survey analyses job vacancies from Graduate Prospects' annual graduate vacancy publication Prospects Directory. Prospects Directory is an A to Z of graduate recruiters, indexed by company, type of work and subject of study, and contains comprehensive careers information. Recruiters who appear in the publication can also be found in the find graduate employers section on Prospects.ac.uk. Information from both the paper version of Prospects Directory and from find graduate employers is used for this survey, as the two sources are complementary.

Unlike job postings in the search for job vacancies section on Prospects.ac.uk, which feature vacancies for both immediate and long-term start, the vacancies in Prospects Directory are primarily for finalists looking for jobs commencing after graduation.

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Scope of the survey

This survey analyses vacancies advertised in the 'company profiles' and 'A-Z recruiter listings' sections of the 2006/7 issue of Prospects Directory, published in September 2006 and aimed at finalists graduating in 2007. The study examines just over 19,500 vacancies from over 300 recruiters, of which 23% have salary information.

Table 1 shows the salary distribution for these vacancies, and Figure 1 shows the distribution of salaries within broad salary bands.

See caveats for a list of facts which must be taken into account when making inferences from this survey about the overall population of new first degree graduates.

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Key findings

• The average salary offered by advertisers in the 2006/07 issue of Prospects Directory is £23,024, with a median of £22,000. These represent a 0.8% and 4.8% increase from last year’s figures (£22,851 and £21,000 respectively). The high salaries are a reflection of the types of recruiters featured, which are almost exclusively large organisations which offer high remuneration (see caveats).
• Salaries offered range from £8,400 to £38,000 (see breakdown by job category for more information).
• The relatively small year-on-year increase in average salaries is attributed, at least partly, to this year’s inclusion of the recruitment of 900 police officers by the Police Service in Scotland, with a starting salary at £19,227.
• Many vacancies (44% of total) have not specified the location of work in the UK. Of those with specific location information, just under one in ten (9.4% of all vacancies) are in London, where the average salary is £25,727 (median £25,000).
• Of vacancies in the capital, one in five (21.7%) are finance type of work. This is followed by vacancies in sales, retail and buying (15.9% of all vacancies in London), IT (13%) and management consultancy (12.3%). Together, these account for three in five (62.9%) jobs in the capital.

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Key findings by job category

Discussion of vacancies is limited to those job categories where there are 30 or more vacancies offered. Discussion of salaries is limited to those job categories where there are 30 or more vacancies with salary information. Smaller sample sizes are too open to variation to identify any significant trends or factors at work.

• Over a quarter (27%) of vacancies advertised in the 2006/7 issue of Prospects Directory are positions in finance, insurance, pensions and actuarial work, and another one in six (16.1%) in administration which includes vacancies in general graduate management trainee schemes. In addition, sales, retail and buying, engineering and IT account for 10.7%, 10.6% and 8.9% respectively of all vacancies.
• The vast majority of the vacancies under law enforcement and public protection are with the Police Service in Scotland, who have advertised for 900 officers in find graduate employers.
• Salaries offered range from £8,400 to £38,000. The highest salaries are offered to graduate area manager trainees with a retailer (£38,000) and graduate recruits with a software and consulting services firm (£35,000). The lowest salary (£8,400) is for management trainees working abroad as personal assistants to company directors, with accommodation and meals provided.
• Of job categories where there are 30 or more vacancies with salary information, sales, retail and buying offers the highest mean salary at £27,395, followed by management consultancy (£27,328), whilst the highest median (£28,500) was for management consultancy positions.

For details, see salaries and vacancies by job category.

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Key findings by type of employer

Discussion of vacancies is limited to those types of employer where there are 30 or more vacancies offered. Discussion of salaries is limited to those types of employer where there are 30 or more vacancies with salary information. Smaller sample sizes are too open to variation to identify any significant trends or factors at work.

• The highest number of vacancies by type of employer advertised in the 2006/7 issue of Prospects Directory are in management consultancies (9.1%), industrial services firms (see footnote), which include engineering consultancies and research organisations (9%) and banks and building societies (8%).
• Of the five main types of industries, consultancies and agencies offer the highest mean and median salaries, at £26,016 and £28,500 respectively.
• Looking at a more detailed industry breakdown, management consultants offer the highest mean salary at £28,552. The oil industries, food and drink manufacturers, computer consultants and retail employers also offer mean salaries of £27,000 or over, well above the average for all employers. For retail employers, however, salaries range from £15,750 to £38,000, and the median salary, at £22,000, is much lower than the average. This is due to the large number of vacancies (90) from one retail employer, with starting salaries at £38,000.
• The highest median salaries, at £28,500, are for positions with management and computer consultants.

For details, see salaries and vacancies by type of employer.

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Key findings by subject of study

Discussion of vacancies is limited to those disciplines where there are 30 or more vacancies. Smaller sample sizes are too open to variation to identify any significant trends or factors at work. Due to the very limited number of subjects with 30 or more vacancies with salary information, no comments about salaries by subject of study are drawn.

• Over two-thirds (70%) of the vacancies on offer in the 2006/7 issue of Prospects Directory are open to graduates from any discipline, indicating that many employers are looking for the 'soft' skills that graduates acquired during their study rather than their knowledge in a specific subject.
• Of vacancies which have not specified the degree subject required, over one in three (36.8%) are attributed to positions in finance, insurance, pensions and actuarial work, followed by administration (16.7%, which includes some management trainees), sales, retail and buying (12.8%), IT (7.5%) and management consultancy (7.4%).
• Of vacancies which require specific degree disciplines, engineering & technology (11.2% of total vacancies) are the most in demand.

For details, see salaries and vacancies by subject of study..

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Caveats

The following facts must be taken into account when making inferences from this survey about the overall population of new first degree graduates.

• Vacancies advertised in Prospects Directory are posted mainly by large companies and organisations and are aimed specifically at graduates. A substantial number of graduates, however, obtain posts which are not specifically targeted at degree holders. As a result, the average salary offered in Prospects Directory is likely to be higher than the average graduate starting salary (reported by students in the destinations of Leavers from Higher Education survey, for example), as there is a bias towards larger firms and specific graduate jobs.
• Vacancy sizes do not necessarily reflect the number of companies recruiting. For example, in some cases, a large number of vacancies arise as a result of the recruitment activities of just one or two companies.
• Although this survey is large, it still only includes a small sample of the total number of posts on offer to graduates, and trends identified from such small samples may not necessarily be representative of the overall graduate recruitment market. In addition, only around 27% of recruiters have provided salary information.
• Occupations which require additional qualifications, such as law, medicine and education, are not covered in this survey.
• Many smaller graduate employers recruit locally and do not require the scope offered by advertising in Prospects Directory.
• Salaries are recorded at the lowest base level reported in the advertisements, so do not include commission or other bonuses, and other increments based on, for example, experience and postgraduate qualifications, unless these are incorporated into the salaries given without having specified that this is the case.

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Footnote

Industrial services firms include engineering consultancies and research organisations.

Copyright © 2002-2012 HECSU | Content last updated: Winter 2006/07