UK Graduate Starting Salary 2026

The detail

There are two "graduate starting salary" numbers people mean, and they differ by around £6,500. The broad figure comes from HESA's Graduate Outcomes survey, which tracks every UK graduate 15 months after they finish. For the 2022/23 cohort, the median salary of first-degree graduates in full-time paid UK employment was £28,500 - up from £27,500 for the previous year's cohort.

The higher figure comes from High Fliers' The Graduate Market in 2026 report, which surveys only the UK's 100 best-known graduate employers (the large banks, law firms, consultancies, tech and consumer-goods brands that run structured graduate schemes). Their median starting salary is £35,000, up from £30,000 five years earlier. Most graduates do not join one of these 100 firms, so the HESA £28,500 is the more representative "typical graduate" figure.

Subject and sector drive most of the variation. HESA data shows science graduates earning more than non-science graduates, with medicine and dentistry among the highest-paying subjects. At the top-employer end, High Fliers reports pay ranging from around £30,300 in the public sector up to roughly £60,000 in investment banking - so the £35,000 median masks a very wide spread.

High Fliers also notes that graduate recruitment at top employers has fallen by almost a quarter over three years (down 5.1% in 2025 after a 14.6% drop in 2024), with a further small decrease expected. So while headline salaries at the top firms have outpaced inflation, the number of those jobs has shrunk - competition for the highest-paying graduate roles is intense.

A £28,500 starting salary is below the UK full-time median of £39,039 (ONS ASHE 2025), which is expected - pay rises steeply through a worker's 20s. To see the monthly take-home on a graduate salary after Income Tax, National Insurance and Plan 2 or Plan 5 student loan repayments, use our salary calculator.