Universities whose alumni earn £40k on graduation

Students have lost out to fee increases, pandemic lockdowns and lecture strikes but a university degree can still be a golden ticket to a well-paid job – if you study at the right place, that is.

Indeed, graduates from a select group of British universities now earn around £40,000 or more on average in the first five years after finishing their studies, research has revealed.

The average salary for jobs requiring a university degree is now £ 26,944, compared to £ 21,494 for those without one, according to analysis by the jobs website Adzuna.

Salaries also improve for those who attain higher university grades.

Jobs requiring a first-class honours degree had average advertised salaries of £30,420, while graduates with a 2:2 could expect to earn £28,391 a year on average, the study found.

Adzuna also looked at the different career pathways that graduates of various universities commonly take after finishing their studies and what they could expect to be earning five years into their careers, based on current market conditions.

The list was dominated by many of the universities one might expect when it comes to top earners.

Oxford and Cambridge ranked second and fifth respectively on the list, with graduates making up to £49,086 a year. However, they were both beaten by the specialist business school Bayes, part of the City University of London, where graduates can earn more than £51,000. They were followed by graduates of the Warwick

Business School (£47,446), Imperial College (£46,305) and University College London (£40,852).

Other members of the Russell Group of elite universities – such as Durham, King’s College London and Newcastle – also ranked highly.

However, advertised salaries for most graduates were found to have dropped when compared to last year. Cambridge graduates’ expected remuneration has dropped by £1,510 since 2022, from £44,190.

Graduates from Edinburgh University, Manchester and Cranfield are also facing lower pay compared to last year, the Adzuna analysis found.

By contrast, the average pay for Oxford alumni, five years after their graduation, has risen by £1,468.

Andrew Hunter, of Adzuna, said the figures showed that the value of a university education, while still real, was “being eroded by inflation”.

He added: “Compared to a year ago, high inflation is driving up the cost of living and eating into many workers’ take- home pay, and the graduate ‘ bonus’ hasn’t kept pace.”

The average university degree leaves graduates with £45,000 of debt, which they only start paying off once their salary exceeds £27,295.

Adzuna’s figures showed that of the 125 universities included in the study, 18 would not lead graduates to a job salary above that threshold within their first five years in the workplace.

Just 19 universities were found to lead their graduates to average salaries above £35,000 while roughly half of all universities would take their alumni to average salaries exceeding £30,000.

A degree from one of Britain’s top universities is still one of the best ways to ensure you land a better-paid job but choosing the right academic institution and course is the key to higher pay.

James Hutt, who studied natural sciences at Cambridge, said that by simply studying at a top university students would increase their chances of being recruited by high-paying firms.

“It was almost the default option because there were so many banks, law firms and consultancies around [ at careers day events on campus],” he said.

Mr Hutt, 29, said such events “weren’t going on at every uni”, adding that his first internship opportunity came from someone he met at an event for “freshers” in their first year.

He said: “Later in life, when I was working at one of those firms, it was clear they were only putting that effort into a few universities.”

Mr Hutt now works as an independent consultant, helping companies understand the impact of new technology on their business models.

He earns roughly £60,000 a year but admitted he earned “much more” in a previous job with a bank.