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Graduates with a 2:2 or Third class degree should expect to earn on average almost £8,000 p.a. less than their peers entering the job market with a 2:1 or First. According to the analysis conducted by job search engine Adzuna.co.uk, these leaves them with a potential deficit of £300,000 over their working lives.
While a few marks here or there on final exam papers may be the only difference, employers use degree results to screen CVs, meaning a lifetime of earning implications.
Best and worse salaries for degree subjectsThe research also shows a huge gulf in salaries between the best and worst paying degree subjects.
Civil Engineering graduates can ultimately expect to earn an average of £46,940, while employers looking for Hospitality & Tourism degrees pay only £18,996 on average.
Economics, Engineering and Law degrees top the list of high earners, closely followed by Maths & Computer Science, whereas Art & Design, Sociology, Anthropology and Media Studies languish towards the bottom.
For school leavers who are put off university education entirely by rising debts and expected average tuition fees of over £8,000 per year from 2012, all may not be not lost.
Salaries for jobs requiring no degreeOffshore Oil Platform jobs topped Adzuna’s analysis of the highest-paying jobs that don’t require a degree with an average of £76,155, followed by Nuclear Energy Workers at £42,945 and Police Sergeants at £39,033.
Adzuna carried out their analysis by scanning the job ads posted in the last month on over 100 different UK job boards, which amassed a total of over 1M unique records. It is the first study to look at a complete index of actual employer demand for degree subjects and grades in the marketplace.
“With over 2.5 million unemployed and rising, young people need to be smart about their choices to maximise their employment prospects and the return on their time and money,” commented Doug Monro, Co-Founder of Adzuna. “Our study confirms that working hard to get a First or a Upper Second pays, but also that dead-end degree subjects don’t help your financial prospects. With increasing fees and debts, it’s not surprising that some potential Alan Sugars and Richard Bransons are by-passing university entirely.”
Adzuna.co.uk’s comprehensive job search engine lists over 400,000 open job vacancies throughout the UK including 25,000 live opportunities for graduates.
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