ISE’s Student Recruitment Survey 2025 launches with the latest data on the entry-level jobs market.
Our Student Recruitment Survey 2025 is the largest of its type. Over the last year’s student recruitment cycle, 2024 to 2025, it analyses data from 155 ISE employer members who recruited over 31,000 student hires from more than 1.8 million applications.
The data provides insight to how employers – mainly large businesses with formal graduate programmes and apprenticeships – are recruiting as well as broader market trends.
Rebalancing entry-level recruitment
This year’s survey found that the balance between graduate and apprentice hiring is shifting for a number of employers as they look to diversify how they get talent into the business to meet skills shortages.
Overall, graduate hiring had fallen by 8% year-on-year, yet apprentice hiring increased by 8%. Graduates still outnumber apprentices and therefore the overall entry-level job market is down 5%.
Employers who recruited students onto both pathways, hired 1.8 graduates for every apprentice this year, which is down from 2.3 in 2024. Projections for next year suggest the ratio will decline further to 1.6:1.
This is the first time graduate jobs have fallen since the 12% decline during the pandemic in 2020. Apprentice recruitment has been in a state of growth since ISE started collecting this data in 2015.
This reflects the role of our members – mainly large levy-paying employers – who have greater resources to develop and manage apprenticeship schemes. This bucks the wider market trend with government data reporting only a 0.6% rise in apprenticeship starts among 19- to 24-year-olds over the past year.
Reprioritisation of roles is also evident in salaries. Over the past decade, graduate salaries have declined in real terms, reflecting a steady erosion of purchasing power. In contrast, salaries for school and college leavers have seen modest real-terms growth.
This year the typical (median) starting salaries reported were £33,000 for graduates (a 2% increase from last year) and £24,000 for school and college leavers (up 3%).
Overall, this means more opportunities for students to get into the UK’s leading businesses. However, the market is complex. Graduates still outnumber apprentices, and they remain a core element of recruitment.
Market context
Our data is not in line with some of the recent headlines (such as reports from Adzuna and Indeed) citing large drops (around a third) in graduate recruitment. This sharp fall could be misleading because job posts on commercial jobs boards might not reflect the reality of hiring taking place.
It’s true that many employers may have taken the ‘graduate’ stipulation out of a job description to ensure they are appealing to as diverse an audience as possible, but this doesn’t mean that job isn’t of a highly skilled nature or that it isn’t filled by a graduate.
But we can’t ignore that the overall jobs market is down as reflected in data from organisations like the REC which shows an overall year-on-year decline of 13% in all hiring.
Competition for jobs at historic high
Fewer roles is one of the main reasons that competition for jobs is so intense at the moment. Our latest data shows the volume of job applications employers receive remains at a historic high.
Go back two decades to 2002/3, and employers received an average of 38 applications per graduate vacancy. By 2022/3 that figure had more than doubled to 86 per vacancy and for the last two years has been at 140 per vacancy. Competition for roles in retail, FMCG and tourism were the highest at 290 applications for every graduate role.
The school leaver market is less competitive, although still challenging. On average, employers received 89 applications per vacancy.
Overall, these results indicate that the graduate market is contracting, with fewer opportunities available despite continued growth in applications. However, the apprentice market shows modest gains in hiring amid rising application volumes.
What’s driving competition for jobs?
Competition for jobs is driven by fewer roles but also students' access to new technology, such as LinkedIn’s Easy Apply, which makes it easier for students to apply for more jobs. Many employers have also reduced barriers to applications by not stipulating minimum A-level grades.
As students make greater use of AI in applications, 79% of employers are now either redesigning or reviewing their recruitment processes. The majority (85%) of employers said in our survey that they had encountered some form of cheating through the application and assessment process.
ISE’s Student Recruitment Survey paints a nuanced picture of a market in transition. While graduate roles remain central to early careers hiring, the steady rise in apprenticeship recruitment signals a meaningful shift in how employers are building future talent pipelines.
Amid economic uncertainty and technological disruption, competition for roles is fiercer than ever, prompting employers to rethink recruitment strategies and students to adapt their approaches.
As the landscape continues to evolve, staying informed and agile will be key for employers to navigate the changing world of student recruitment. ISE is here to facilitate conversations, share best practice and provide useful insight.