If you want to be filthy rich, here are the 10 best UK university subjects for grad salaries

Going to university in the UK can be scarily expensive. You might end up still owing tens of thousands of pounds to the Student Loans Company when you’re 60. You can be strategic about which university course you pick, though. Grads with these ten university degrees are paid the highest salaries in their first jobs.

The overall median salary of grads 15 months beyond uni is £28,500. People who studied some subjects are raking in way more than that. The best courses to apply for if you’d like to be minted are medicine and dentistry. These grads also have a great record of actually getting jobs. Only 1.7 per cent of med school grads are unemployed after 15 months. Tragically, these courses are among the hardest to secure an offer for.

Not every subject on the list is STEM. Geography, education and sociology grads are also making lots of money (compared to the rest of grads, anyway).

Woah, maybe people don’t just pick geography for the trips?

You’re also much more likely to make lots of money in your first job depending on which university you pick. Imperial College London is the best uni to study at if you want to get rich. On average, those grads are paid £37,000.

If you want to know which subjects to avoid, then here are the university degrees that will get you saddest grad salaries.

These stats came from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). The figures are the weighted median salaries of the full-time undergraduate students who left uni in 2023, and also got full-time jobs in the UK, in 2025.

So, these are the best subjects to study at a UK university to get grad jobs with high salaries in 2026:

10. Architecture, building and planning – £28,436

9. Geography, earth and environmental studies (as a humanities subject) – £28,998

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8. Physical sciences – £29,993

=6. Education and teaching – £30,000

=6. Social sciences – £30,000

5. Computing – £30,998

Mad respect to anybody who can make it through a comp sci degree

4. Mathematical sciences – £31,450

3. Engineering and technology – £31,975

2. Veterinary sciences – £33,750

1. Medicine and dentistry – £37,924

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