"Graduate" jobs

pinkshoes

I graduated with a masters degree in engineering 6.5 years ago, and started in a graduate job as a mechanical engineer in 2004, paying £21k.

I've moved on since then (and doing ok ), and out of curiosity looked at their recruitment.

They were advertising for a graduate engineer, same description as my first graduate job, but for a salary of £20k!!!

So in 6.5 years, their starting salary has actually gone down!

Is this common in engineering? Have graduate salaries really not gone up? Is it the same in other "graduate" careers?

£21k in 2004 wasn't overly big money!

snowqueen555

Sounds about right to me, they can pay less and get away with it, its the times we are in

Lokolo

I imagine it hasn't been like that for 6 years, but infact over the past couple of years, the salary has reduced.

Kilty_2

Depends on the sector......

I'm aiming for a graduate job with a large power company I'm sponsored by and I'm lead to believe their starting salary is better than that.

MrRedundant

True Graduate jobs offer pretty good salaries but what people need to remember is the competition for each position; the fact it is likely to be limited term; there is no guarentee of a job after; often your development isnt all that important and you will find yourself thrown in at the deep end with little support and finally if you fail an exam your out on your ear.

I would suggest graduates consider whether a "graduate job" is always the best avenue.

I know of several people who did them and at the end of 2/3 years found themselves seriously struggling in the job market against better qualified and experienced individuals who hadn't got caught up in the graduate job hype. Yes there salaries had been lower but they gained better experience and qualifications and didnt end up on the dole after 2 years.

asc99c

Engineering salaries are shockingly low here considering the skills required, relative to other jobs (in my opinion). I'd have said £21k was a very good starting salary for engineering in 2004. I graduated in 2002 and started on 19k. I looked at a number of engineering type companies, but they mostly paid in the £15-18k range IIRC.

FATBALLZ

I'm starting to wonder if these low graduate salaries are a bit of a false economy. It seems to me that employers are trying to get graduates cheaply in order to offset the high salaries they pay to middle aged workers that were built up in the good years. It doesn't take long for better graduates to realise they're being screwed over and go elsewhere for better money, so a lot of the cost of recruiting and training graduates gets wasted, as the better ones leave, and only the less able ones are willing to stay on and work for less.

That's my experience anyway, other job sectors may be different.

PasturesNew

I am not a graduate. In 1997 I started a new job with a company, I recently checked their website and for that job they're still paying the same salary they employed me on.

In 1988 or so, I was temping as a secretary, rate was £6.60/hour - if I go temping now as a secretary the rate will still be £6.60/hour.

The wages of many jobs have not increased. In a lot of cases, it's because people with kids being able to get Working Tax Credits meant employers didn't have to pay a proper wage any more as the Govt "topped people up", but not everybody, so it's annoying for those who don't get that.

pinkshoes

MrRedundant wrote: »

True Graduate jobs offer pretty good salaries but what people need to remember is the competition for each position; the fact it is likely to be limited term; there is no guarentee of a job after; often your development isnt all that important and you will find yourself thrown in at the deep end with little support and finally if you fail an exam your out on your ear.

I would suggest graduates consider whether a "graduate job" is always the best avenue.

This is a genuine "graduate" job with a good company, and they do offer excellent training opportunities. I'm just really surprised that the exact same position that I started in is now paying £1k lower after 6 years!

£21k in 2004 was about average for a starting salary for a graduate engineer, given it's in the South East...

Saying that, I helped carry out interviews for their sponsor scheme and graduate scheme, and although the amount of candidates trebled, the quality was so poor, that after binning all the "rubbish" CVs, they actually ended up with less candidates to choose from. Of those interviewed, I was amazed how many of the sponsor candidates seemed to think it was ok to wear trainers with a suit, and a t-shirt instead of a shirt and tie to an interview!!

I know they're not allowed to discriminate which university the graduate candidates went to, but I know they used to ask for a minimum of 3 Cs at A Level, just to narrow down the quantity of candidates!

You have to question whether it's worth doing a degree nowadays, particular when tuition fees are set to rise!

bristol_pilot

Yes, I'm in engineering and graduate starting salaries have been flat for around 5 years.

There are the same number of good candidates as there always were, but many more poor quality graduates around. Frankly these are people who would not have gone to university in the old days.

Asking for 3 Cs at A level will not work well as a discriminator because every CV I see these days seems to have straight As at both GCSE and A level. Also, I want to know how good a grad is now, not how good their teacher was at age 17.

We tend to recruit from select universities and rely upon graduate recruitment centres to get good candidates.

Nick1109

I work in civil engineering in the south and the starting wage for a 'graduate engineer' is 24K I believe.