-university pipeline used to be simple – get a job with one of the UK’s top recruiters, who would compete to attract graduates with high salaries, move to a new city and starting climbing the ladder.
Now, a new pattern is emerging, with graduates more likely to move home and apply for hundreds of jobs before landing a role, often not in their field of choice.
New research shows that this year’s graduates are choosing to reject this all together, by moving abroad, where salaries are higher and opportunities for progression are better.
James Deverell, 23, moved to China last year after graduating from the University of Loughborough, and says his prospects have improved dramatically.
“I can’t see a world where I move back,” Deverell told The i Paper. “When you look at the groups and communities that you have access to, you can just get to the top of the career ladder so much more quickly.”
Applications are a ‘hell hole’
In his final year at Loughborough University, business studies graduate Deverell applied to more than 80 jobs. By this point, Deverell had already accumulated £59,000 in debt for his time at university, covering tuition and maintenance.
“All the way leading up to graduation, I was applying for jobs in the same kind of rat race as a lot of people,” he said. “It was a hell hole. I think of these I got maybe four or three final-stage interviews.”
Though he did manage to secure a job at a recruitment firm, with a starting salary of £27,000, he ended up rejecting the offer.
“The second I got accepted, I saw the paperwork, and I felt like, ‘God, this isn’t what I want at all,'” he said. “This is me settling to be at the bottom of a ladder I don’t even want to climb.”
The year before, he had studied abroad in China, and liked the country’s atmosphere. He reached out to some contacts there and before he knew it had landed a job teaching English in the business hub Guangzhou.
It was a slightly lower salary than his UK offer, but with accommodation and food included and the cost of living a quarter of London prices, it made much more financial sense to Deverell.
Graduates don’t want to ‘sit around at home’
Deverell isn’t unusual in making this decision – one in 10 of this year’s graduates are planning to emigrate for better opportunities, according to the latest graduate market report from think-tank High Fliers.
The report said the proportion of final-year students who said they are going to look for a job overseas has risen by a third to 10.2 per cent this year.
While Deverell considers himself a driven, highly employable person, he felt in the UK there was nothing “unique” about him to catch recruiter’s eyes among thousands of others – but in China, his native English skills make him valuable.
Another 2025 graduate who also teaches English in China, Jean, agreed with Deverell that the UK graduate job market did not present an inviting prospect.
Describing how she decided to emigrate during her final year of studying modern languages at the University of Oxford, she said: “Having done a four-year degree, when the majority of my friends had done three-year degrees, I’d seen what the UK job market looked like for someone my age with a degree similar to me.”
“It was lots of applications, lots of sitting around at home,” she said. “I didn’t want to have a big gap on my resume, I wanted to be straight into work.”
This year, the job market is set to be even worse, with 0.5 per cent fewer graduates to be hired by the top employers, bringing hiring to its lowest level since 2012.
Jean avoided the UK applications cycle entirely and landed her job in China in February of her final year, starting days after her graduation.
Economy is ‘more accessible’ for young people
Having lived in China for almost a year now, Deverell is happy with his decision and says the networking opportunities are much better than he would have got in the UK.
He’s now setting up his own import-export business alongside his work in education, saying the more “informal” economy in China makes it a much friendlier environment for young entrepreneurs.
“If you’re one of those people who’s looking to find a mentor, I think that kind of thing is so much more accessible here, just because the pool is smaller,” he said.
With the median UK graduate salary not predicted to grow from £35,000 this year, according to High Fliers’ research, there isn’t much incentive to return to the UK. Jean isn’t looking to stay in China long-term, but says working there has set her up for the future financially.
“China has offered me the opportunity to put away money, so that I can come back and do a master’s degree in the UK,” she said. She knows two other British graduates who are returning home for further study this year, having saved up.
She says many of her friends moved home to save up, but she is glad she has managed to do so without returning to “living like a teenager”. Home for Jean is in the northeast of England, where she says she would not have been able to get a job and it would have been very expensive to commute to London for interviews.
Although the move was initially meant to be temporary for Deverell as well, he can’t see himself returning to the UK any time soon.
“My contract’s coming up to the end of this year and if I don’t renew here, I will find another opportunity in an economy where I can benefit,” he said. “I don’t see a world where I would move back to the bottom of a ladder.”
Though he admits that expat life can get lonely at times, Deverell thinks the positives outweigh the negatives.
“I have forfeited the social life in exchange for a better financial situation. By the end of this year, I will have more money in the bank than if I had a £35,000 job in London,” he said. “It’s really hard to justify moving back.”
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