GCCA | Graduate Careers Council of Australia

Graduate Careers Australia

ergo - Number 97 Dec 2004 - Feb 2005

UK Labour Market – AGR Survey Report

The AGR Graduate Recruitment Survey 2004 was released earlier this year by the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) in the United Kingdom, and heralded good news for UK graduates. The Summer Review report was released in mid-2004 to provide graduate employers with labour market information, and the principle finding in this report is that there has been an increase of around 15.5% in overall graduate vacancies.

Employers Indicate Increased Intake

Mirroring the experience of the Australian graduate labour market, which continued to rally throughout the second half of the year, some 82% of graduate employers indicated that they would maintain or increase their graduate intake in 2005. The industries offering the largest number of vacancies in 2004 included accountancy, law, investment banking and engineering, another parallel with the Australian experience in 2004.

Starting salaries in the UK also saw an increase (albeit more modest) with the median graduate starting salary rising 3.4% compared to salary rates paid in 2003. Law, consulting, investment banking, mineral exploration and fast-moving consumer goods offered the highest starting salaries in the UK during this period.

Recruiting Trends Indentified

There were some other important trends in graduate recruitment identified which again reflect the Australian experience; these included a marked increase in employers recruiting year-round or in phases (rather than at one time of the year only), an increase in telephone pre-screening of candidates, higher retention rates recorded in the public sector, banking, IT, engineering and pharmaceutical industries, and a decrease in the number of applications per vacancy overall.

Workplace Diversity

Diversity remains a concern for many employers although this has yet to translate widely into formal diversity targets; this situation will be interesting to monitor as the workforce becomes more global and the labour market swings towards being an “employee’s market”.