| According to research released by the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) at its annual conference, the graduate recruitment market is surviving the economic downturn despite recent gloomy forecasts.
Graduate starting salaries have continued to rise as the average starting salary is £24,000. In total UK employers have increased the number of vacancies on offer to graduates by 15.5%. This follows two years of reduced vacancies when employers cut their recruitment by 6.5% and 3.4% respectively.
Graduate starting salaries are highest in London- £25,000 and the South East- £21,500 and lowest in Scotland- £18,500 and Northern Ireland- £18,000. The biggest increase is reported in the midlands where starting salaries have increased by 8.7% to £20,000.
With an average of more than 30 applications for most graduate vacancies, employers begin to drop the 2:1 degree as the gold standard selection tool which makes the competition for jobs more intensive.
Chris Crawford is the MD of BD Recruitment a specialist recruiter for the creative recruitment, marketing recruitment and technical recruitment industries, based in Manchester, UK. |
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