Prospects Directory salary and vacancy survey (Winter 07/08)

• 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

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. The vacancies featured are primarily aimed at finalists looking for jobs commencing after graduation. Recruiters who appear in the publication can also be found at Find graduate employers.

back to top

Scope of the survey

This survey analyses vacancies advertised in the 'company profiles' and 'A-Z recruiter listings' sections of the 2007/8 issue of Prospects Directory, published in September 2007 and aimed at finalists graduating in 2008. The study examines 18,500 vacancies from over 300 recruiters, of which 26% have salary information.

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

back to top

Key findings

• The average salary offered by advertisers in the 2007/8 issue of Prospects Directory is £24,048, with a median of £23,500. These represent a 4.4% and 6.8% increase from last year’s figures (£23,024 and £22,000 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 £14,732 to £39,000. The highest salary is offered to graduates entering the graduate area management trainee programme with a nationwide retailer. The next highest salaries, at £38,000 and £36,000 are for trainee solicitors working in London. The lowest salaries, at £14,732 and £15,300, are for support workers for a charity organisation and graduate management trainees for a leisure company, respectively.

back to top

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.

• A third of the vacancies (32.2%) advertised in the 2007/8 issue of Prospects Directory are positions in finance, insurance, pensions and actuarial work. Since the publication of the Directory, however, the financial sector has experienced a downturn and it is unclear what effect this will have on the level of graduate recruitment in the coming year.
• One in six (16.4%) vacancies are in engineering and one in 11 (9.2%) are in administration which includes vacancies in general graduate management trainee schemes.
• Vacancies in legal services command the highest mean and median salaries, at £35,572 and £36,000 respectively. The next highest mean and median salaries, at over £27,000, are for vacancies in scientific services. The number of vacancies with salary information for these positions, however, is small.

See Salaries and vacancies by job category.

back to top

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 2007/8 issue of Prospects Directory are in industrial services companies (12%), which include engineering consultancies, followed by finance (10.3%), and management consultancies (8.3%).
• The highest mean (£36,678) and median (£36,000) salaries are offered to trainee solicitors by firms in the legal sector. Food and drink companies and chemical manufacturers offer the next highest salaries. Vacancies in these companies include research as well as commercial and head office support roles.
• Of the five main types of industries, professional services firms offer the highest mean salary at £27,614. The highest median salary (£25,000) is offered by consultancies and agencies, due to the large number of jobs in IT/computing companies with starting salary at this level.
• The hotel and catering industry offers the lowest mean and median salaries, at £18,500.

See Salaries and vacancies by type of employer.

back to top

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.

• Two-thirds (66%) of the vacancies on offer in the 2007/8 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 require specified degree disciplines, engineering & technology (17.3% of total vacancies), followed by mathematical sciences (4.3%), are the most in demand.

See Salaries and vacancies by subject of study.

back to top

Caveats

The following facts must be taken into account when making inferences from this survey about the overall population of new 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. 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 accounts for only 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 26% 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.

Copyright © 2002-2012 HECSU | Content last updated: Feb 2008