UK graduate job vacancies plunge to lowest in a decade
UK graduate job vacancies have fallen to their lowest level since records began a decade ago, with recruitment website Adzuna reporting just 8,383 university-leaver positions advertised in July, a 45% drop compared with the same month last year. The slump coincides with a record 262,820 students preparing to start university in September, deepening concern about the prospects facing new graduates as entry-level roles come under pressure from artificial intelligence and rising employment costs. Adzuna said the figures show a spring recovery has now gone into reverse, adding to evidence of a weakening youth labour market.
Vacancies fell across sectors including healthcare, nursing, hospitality and logistics, while only travel, teaching and construction saw increases, with manufacturing also starting to add roles. Adzuna co-founder Andrew Hunter said employers "still haven't found a reason to open up hiring" at graduate level, pointing to rising jobseekers per vacancy. The figures represent a stark decline from 2017, when more than 55,000 graduate positions were advertised, with firms also reining in hiring following increases to national insurance and the minimum wage announced by former chancellor Rachel Reeves. Around 1 million young people were classed as Neet (not in education, employment or training) in the first quarter of the year, according to the ONS, and an IPPR report found many 16- to 21-year-olds are losing confidence in their futures.
- Graduate vacancies hit decade-low of 8,383 in July, down 45% year-on-year
- Record 262,820 people starting university amid worsening job prospects
- AI, rising labour costs and hiring caution blamed for the slump
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Universities publish job vacancies each year for graduates leaving with a degree, and recruitment sites track how many roles employers advertise for them. That figure has been falling, and the drop matters because it comes just as a record number of students are about to start university, meaning even more people will be competing for graduate jobs when they eventually finish.
The trend affects young people broadly, not just this year's graduates: entry-level hiring across many industries has been slowing, with employers blamed variously on the cost of employing staff, weaker demand, and the growing use of artificial intelligence to do tasks once given to junior workers. This sits alongside wider concern about the number of young people who are neither working nor studying.
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The case for
Those emphasising the impact of recent tax and employment policy argue that the sharp fall in graduate vacancies is a foreseeable consequence of raising the costs of hiring, particularly the increases to employer national insurance and the minimum wage introduced by the previous chancellor. On this view, businesses respond rationally to higher fixed costs per employee by trimming discretionary hiring first, and graduate roles, often seen as an investment in training rather than an immediate need, are among the easiest to cut. Advocates of this position tend to favour easing the burden on employers, arguing that without a more competitive cost environment, young people will continue to be squeezed out of the labour market regardless of how many graduate they produce.
The case against
Others argue that pinning the blame primarily on domestic tax policy overstates the government's role and understates deeper structural forces reshaping entry-level work, including the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence tools capable of performing tasks once given to junior staff, alongside a decade-long oversupply of graduates relative to demand. From this perspective, sectors as varied as healthcare, hospitality and logistics are all pulling back simultaneously, suggesting a broad economic and technological shift rather than a policy-specific effect confined to the UK. Proponents of this view often maintain that measures such as fair minimum wages and employer contributions remain important for worker protection and public finances, and that the response to a changing graduate market should focus on retraining, career guidance and sector-specific support rather than reversing those protections.
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