Graduate earnings fell by £500 in six years to just £31,400 amid questions over the value of a degree, new data shows.
Official statistics show the median salary for a UK graduate five years after leaving university reduced by 2 per cent between 2016/17 and 2022/23.
The data, which is the latest available, is adjusted for
inflation
– meaning graduates could afford less in the latest tax year than they could six years previously.
Meanwhile, median earnings for those with postgraduate degrees also decreased in real terms by £700 – 2 per cent – to £38,000 over the same period.
Last night, Paul Wiltshire, a parent campaigner on value-for-money in universities, said: ‘The steady decline in average graduate pay is because we have higher graduate numbers, increasingly drawn from school leavers with lower innate academic ability.
‘And these graduates are earning progressively less, as it is no wonder that spending three more years pursuing an academic qualification if you are not particularly academic, doesn’t improve your job prospects much.
‘We need far more school leavers to enter the workforce as a trainee aged 18 to work hard and forge a career in the jobs that society needs doing.’
However, Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi), said of the drop: ‘This reflects the wider economic malaise.
‘When you are grappling with the aftermath of a pandemic, stagnant economic growth and poor productivity, wages get held down.
‘The numbers don’t lie, but they are less a reflection of what is happening in higher education and more a reflection of what is going on in the economy.’
Unsurprisingly, those who had achieved best at A-level were the graduates who went on to earn most five years after graduation.
Graduates with four As or more had median graduate earnings of £51,000, while those with three As earned £44,200.
At the bottom end of the scale, those who earned three Ds or less brought in £29,200.
Universities have been under political pressure to admit more students with lower grades, as part of a social mobility drive.
Broken down by individual subject, performing arts graduates earned the least, averaging at £24,500, followed by those in the creative arts at £25,600.
Others at the low end of the scale included teaching, sociology and psychology.
Meanwhile, graduates of medicine and dentistry were the top earners – bringing in an average of £53,300.
Economics graduates were the second best-off, with £50,400, followed by physics graduates with £42,000.
The data also showed 88.6 per cent of first degree graduates were in employment or study after five years – broadly comparable to previous years.
And it revealed the median earnings of EU graduates employed in the UK were 21 per cent higher than those for domestic graduates, following a long-term trend.
However, women were earning 13 per cent less than men, and those from impoverished backgrounds were earning nine per cent less than their peers.
Previous separate data shows the university participation rate for 18-year-olds increased from 24.7 per cent in 2006 to a peak of 38.2 per cent in 2021, although it fell back to 36.4 per cent in 2024.
Across all under-25s the proportion is closer to half the population.
The Department for Education has been contacted for comment.
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