Aldi’s £42k starting salary for graduates
As City banks offer £50k to student job hunters
IT is known for undercutting its rivals with food at bargain prices.
But despite being a discount supermarket, it seems Aldi’s graduate employees don’t come cheap.
The chain is apparently paying bright students starting salaries of up to £42,000 to train as managers.
According to research out today, the average starting wage for university leavers at Britain’s 100 leading employers will exceed £30,000 for the first time ever this year – with Aldi’s being the most generous declared wage outside of the City.
Almost a third of graduate jobs at these firms now pay more than £35,000, with four well-known investment banks offering basic salaries of between £45,000 and £50,000.
The figures come amid the best prospects for student job-hunters in a decade. The first generation of students to pay £9,000-a-year tuition fees will graduate into a ‘buoyant’ job market this summer, with the most opportunities since 2005.
However, leading employers were forced to leave 700 graduate jobs unfilled last year, as some struggled with a ‘lack of quality applications’. The figures, from the 10th annual Graduate Market study, also found that students with no work experience stand little chance of landing a job at nearly half of the top 100 employers. Almost a third of vacancies at these firms will be filled by graduates who have already done work experience or internships with them – rising to three quarters at City investment banks.
The study, compiled by analysts High Fliers Research, revealed the vacancies and starting salaries at 100 of the country’s biggest graduate employers, including Goldman Sachs, the BBC, Google and MI5.
Students gaining their degree this year will start work on a typical salary of £30,000, up from £29,500 last year.
However, the study said it was unlikely that starting salaries have been raised in response to the rise in tuition fees – but rather to compete with rival companies.
It found that they recruited 7.9 per cent more graduates last year and are likely to expand by another 8.1 per cent this year.
The report noted: ‘This substantial increase in graduate vacancies for 2015 takes graduate recruitment beyond the pre-recession peak in the graduate market in 2007, and means that there will be more opportunities for this summer’s university leavers than at any time in the last decade.’
The research also revealed the universities where bosses are most likely to concentrate their talent-spotting efforts.
Manchester was targeted by the most employers, with Nottingham, Warwick, Cambridge and Oxford making up the top five.