More graduate jobs pay minimum wage as university premium evaporates

Rapid increases successful the National Living Wage mean a full-time idiosyncratic connected the UK’s lowest wage present earns £25,500. Meanwhile, 1 successful 10 postgraduate roles were advertised astatine £25,000 astatine the extremity of past year, according to Indeed data.

Around a 4th of entry-level roles requiring a grade offered an mean wage of £27,765, scarcely much than the ineligible minimum.

It comes aft the National Living Wage has soared pursuing a bid of inflation-beating rises, astir precocious increasing by 6.7pc to £12.21 an hr successful April. It has jumped by 37pc since 2021. In contrast, the mean wage has grown by 24pc implicit the aforesaid period, portion ostentation has risen by 23pc.

The worst paid postgraduate roles inactive offered a premium implicit the minimum wage until 2024, erstwhile the spread closed, according to Indeed.

The mean postgraduate studying successful England leaves assemblage £48,470 successful debt, putting further strain connected their finances.

The accelerated minimum wage summation is placing much unit connected employers struggling to clasp wage scales for progression, jobs organisations say.

Neil Carberry, from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, said: “A peculiar country of interest for employers is what we telephone differentials. Employers are seeing a large spillover from the minimum wage to the adjacent levels up.”

The treble stroke of a rising minimum wage and the hike successful taxes connected employers volition apt besides pb to less entry-level jobs being created, helium warned.

It adds to the challenges for graduates looking for their archetypal oregon 2nd nonrecreational occupation aft assemblage successful a pugnacious market.

A survey by KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation past week recovered the fig of radical looking for enactment had risen astatine the fastest gait since December 2020, amid a deficiency of vacancies and rising redundancies.

Meanwhile, occupation openings person fallen for 2 and a fractional years.

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