One in ten new UK graduates plan to leave country amid ‘worst time in 30 years to leave university’

One in ten students graduating from UK universities this summer are planning to leave the country for better job opportunities, according to a new survey.

The study, conducted by High Fliers Research, found that the proportion of final-year students who say they will look for a job abroad has increased by a third in just two years, from 7.8 percent in 2024 to 10.2 percent this year.

Martin Birchall, founder of graduate recruitment search company High Fliers, said: Times: “This is probably the worst time to leave university in the last 30 years.

“The odds of getting a job this summer are at their lowest level in all the years we’ve been tracking this.” [since 1995].”

This year’s research saw High Fliers interview more than 15,000 students from 30 universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, Warwick, Durham, London School of Economics and Edinburgh.

Only 27 per cent of students said they had found a job in the UK or elsewhere in September.

This rate, which was previously around 35-40 percent, dropped to 23 percent during the pandemic period.

Mr Birchall added: “This is the second lowest level ever seen, but this group still appears to have submitted more applications and engaged more with employers.

“They participated in a record number of career activities and started earlier than ever before. More than half of those surveyed had started their job search in their first year.”

James Reed, CEO of recruitment firm Reed, said: Times: “As the entry-level job market in the UK becomes extremely challenging, more graduates are heading abroad.

“We have seen a significant decline in graduate vacancies in recent years, with the number of graduate positions at Reed.co.uk falling from 180,000 four years ago to 50,000 last year. This means competition for remaining roles is intense.”

The findings come shortly after a bombshell review revealed that the youth unemployment crisis is costing the UK £125bn a year; because the number of young people who are not working or not in education has exceeded 1 million for the first time since 2013.

The eye-watering figure, which is more than the country spends on education and almost twice its defense budget, is one of several striking figures revealed in last month’s report by former Labor health secretary Alan Milburn, who warned that Britain was in danger of creating a “lost generation” unless serious action was taken to tackle the problem.

Mr Milburn said the growing NEET crisis – the number of young people aged 16 to 24 not in education, employment or training – was the result of “whole system failure”, leading to a lack of entry-level jobs for young people.

Mr Milburn warned that unless urgent action is taken the number of young people who are Neet will rise from one in eight to one in six by 2031, affecting 1.25 million young people.

Sir Keir Starmer described Mr Milburn’s report as “serious” and said he would “not allow a lost generation to emerge”.