Salaries of British graduates are not rising fast enough to keep up with inflation

In many fields, inflation is rising faster than the salaries of university graduates. Medical professionals are the most affected.

According to a new study by Raisin UK, graduates in 2020 earned comparatively less than their counterparts from 2000.

The study used salaries for the most in-demand jobs in the UK in 2020 and used a salary inflation calculator to determine how much they have grown since 2000. Raisin then used a general inflation calculator to determine that general inflation has exceeded wage inflation by 0.14%.

Raisin found that there are differences between salary expectations and the actual salary situation in different fields.

The study also examined which courses and universities produce graduates with the highest incomes.

The top spots were taken by medicine and dentistry, with 47% of students surveyed later earning more than £39,000 ($50,466).

At the other end of the scale, only 3% of graduates from creative arts and design, mass communications and agriculture courses earned more than £39,000 after graduating.

Although the average income of these graduates does not typically evolve as quickly as that of medical students, that is not to say that it has not improved over time. In 2020, the average salary of an arts graduate is about £9,609 higher than it was in 2000. However, if it had increased in line with inflation, it would have to be £9,633.

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Graduates from Oxford and Cambridge were the top earners on average, both achieving salaries of over £32,000. University College London and King's College London followed closely behind with similar results.

Fifth place went to the University of Edinburgh, whose graduates earned an average of just over £31,000.

Wage growth has already slowed in the UK since the Covid-19 pandemic, while small business bosses warned that small firms were “struggling to raise salaries”.

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