Oh dear! These are the Russell Group unis where the most grads end up unemployed in 2024

I wouldn’t quit your customer service job just yet x


You’d think that after all the effort of perfecting your personal statement and bossing your A-Levels so you could go to a Russell Group uni that you’d have no trouble grabbing a great grad job, right? Well, not really. There’s a massive difference in how many grads from different Russell Group unis end up unemployed in 2024.

As part of The Guardian’s new uni league tables, it took into account the employment rates at every UK uni. The Guardian defines employment as “percentage of graduates who find graduate-level jobs, or are in further study at a professional or higher education level, within 15 months of graduation”. So, these stats come from the cohort who graduated in the 2021/2022 academic year and are currently have grad jobs (or not). These stats also count people who signed up for a panic procrastination Master’s as being employed.

While a huge 96 per cent of grads from Imperial College London get jobs, the employment rates of other Russell Group unis are a lot lower than that. Queen Mary University of London is the Russell Group uni where grads are most likely to be unemployed in 2024. Quite a lot of other Russel Group unis are only a little behind it.

Here are the Russell Group unis ranked by the percentage of students who found grad jobs by 2024:

24. Imperial College London – 96 per cent

23. University of Cambridge – 94 per cent

=21. University of Oxford – 93 per cent

=21. London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) – 93 per cent

LSE is definitely not the Russell Group uni where students get the least jobs

You’d think that London uni students spend too much time in London’s 1000 pubs to find jobs on LinkedIn?

20. Durham University – 91 per cent

=18. University College London (UCL) – 90 per cent

=18. Queen’s University Belfast – 90 per cent

=16. University of Warwick – 89 per cent

=16. King’s College London – 89 per cent

=14. University of Birmingham – 88 per cent

=14. Cardiff University – 88 per cent

=11. University of Bristol – 87 per cent

=11. University of Southampton – 87 per cent

Southampton is one of the Russell Group unis where grads get the least jobs

At least if you go to the Uni of Southampton, you can escape your fears of unemployment by having a vibey beach day

=11. University of Nottingham – 87 per cent

=2. Newcastle University – 86 per cent

=2. University of Leeds – 86 per cent

=2. University of Manchester – 86 per cent

=2.. University of Liverpool – 86 per cent

=2. University of York – 86 per cent

=2. University of Sheffield – 86 per cent

=2. University of Exeter – 86 per cent

=2. University of Edinburgh – 86 per cent

=2. University of Glasgow – 86 per cent

1. Queen Mary University of London – 83.0 per cent

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