You would be earning £4000 more in your first job if you didn’t go to uni

Slack-jawed apprentices earn £4,000 more a year than graduates in their first job, a new study has revealed.

Those who left school to do an apprenticeship had better financial opportunities than those in their first grad position, meaning you might be wishing you’d got some hands on experience after all.

While the average graduate has a starting salary of just £14,734, apprentices bag a much healthier £18,463 – meaning they earn roughly £310 a month more than graduates.

Many apprentices said they avoided uni “to stop getting into debt” and only 8% said that wished they’d taken on a degree.

But of the skint grads surveyed 33% said they wished they’d embarked on an apprenticeship instead of going to uni.

Spencer Mehlman, Managing Director of the team behind the aptly named www.notgoingtouni.co.uk study said: “We’re not surprised at all that apprentices earn more within their first jobs than graduates, purely because they get hands-on experience while they’re learning, and their first job is typically within the company they’ve trained with.

“So they know everything already in terms of rules, what the company likes and dislikes, and they have experience with the costumers and clients already.”

Attempting to allay the fears of broke undergrads everywhere, Mehlman added: “This research isn’t in any way undermining those who undertake a graduate degree.

“But university isn’t for everyone.”