REVEALED: The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers 2019

BridgewaterUKMay 22, 2019Advice For Graduates, Current News0

The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers is an annual guide published by High Fliers Research. It boasts of listing the UK’s most prestigious and sought-after graduate employers.

Now in its twentieth edition, the latest Top 100 employer rankings for 2019 have been compiled from interviews with over 19,000 graduates who left university last year. The graduates were asked: “Which employer do you think offers the best opportunities for graduates?”.

So, who came out on top? Let’s find out…

The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers 2019

Rank	Employer	Graduate jobs in 2018	Starting Salary
1	PwC	1350	Competitive
2	Civil Service Fast Stream	1500	£25,000-£28,000
3	Aldi	100	£44,000
4	Teach First	1750	Competitive
5	Google	No fixed quota	Competitive
6	Deloitte	1000+	Competitive
7	NHS	500	£23,818
8	KPMG	Around 1,200	Competitive
9	EY	800	Competitive
10	GSK	60+	Competitive
11	Unilever	40-50	£32,000
12	BBC	130	£20,800
13	J.P. Morgan	400+	Competitive
14	HSBC	600+	Competitive
15	Lidl	60	£36,540
16	Rolls-Royce	300+	£28,500
17	Goldman Sachs	450	Competitive
18	Barclays	500+	Competitive
19	Jaguar Land Rover	250-300	£29,000
20	Accenture	400+	Competitive
21	McKinsey & Company	No fixed quota	Competitive
22	BP	100+	£35,000+
23	Amazon	250+	Competitive
24	Lloyds Banking Group	250+	Competitive
25	IBM	150+	£30,000-£32,000
26	Frontline	452	Competitive
27	Arup	250+	£22,000 – £26,500
28	Army	650+	Over £31,000
29	Shell	38+	Competitive
30	Sky	100+	Competitive
31	RBS	300	Competitive
32	P&G	50	Competitive
33	John Lewis Partnership	To be confirmed	Competitive
34	Newton	100	£45,000 – £50,000
35	M&S	200	Competitive
36	Clifford Chance	90+	£46,600
37	Tesco	80+	£28,000 – £32,000
38	Allen & Overy	80-90	£45,000
39	BAE Systems	350	£28,000 – £32,000
40	Linklaters	100	£44,000
41	Mars	25-30	£30000-£32000
42	Think AheadApple	100-112	£17,000 – £19,000
43	Morgan Stanley	200+	Competitive
44	Apple	No fixed quota	Competitive
45	Atkins	400	£26,500
46	AstraZeneca	80+	£29,000+
47	Boston Consulting Group	No fixed quota	Competitive
48	Herbert Smith Freehills	Up to 60	£44,000
49	Microsoft	40	Competitive
50	Dyson	75+	£26,500
51	Airbus	100+	£27,000
52	ASOS	No fixed quota	Competitive
53	Penguin Random House	200+	£23,000
54	Boots	30-40	£26,000 – £29,000
55	Facebook	Unknown	Competitive
56	Santander	100	£30,000
57	Virgin Media	60+	£30,000+
58	DLA Piper	70-80	£45,000
59	Bloomberg	450	Competitive
60	Slaughter and May	80-85	£45,000
61	ExxonMobil	30+	£38,500+
62	Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer	Up to 80	£45,000
63	Cancer Research UK	9	£25,000
64	WPP	To be confirmed	Competitive
65	Baker & McKenzie	30	£45,000
66	Bain & Company	No fixed quota	Competitive
67	Wellcome	12	£26,000
68	McDonald’s Restaurants	30	£22,000
69	Citi	Varies	Competitive
70	BT	250+	£28,250+
71	Bank of England	80+	£30,000
72	BlackRock	125+	Competitive
73	ngdp for Local Government	140	£25,295
74	Danone	15-20	£30,500
75	TPP	50+	£45,000
76	Hogan Lovells	50	£45,000
77	Johnson & Johnson	25-30	Competitive
78	Royal Navy	No fixed quota	£25,984
79	MI5 – The Security Service	300+	£30,000+
80	White & Case	50	£46,000
81	Network Rail	170	£26,500
82	British Airways	50-100	£27,500 – £32,000
83	RAF	500-600	£31,232
84	Aon	75+	Competitive
85	L’Oreal	28	£30,000
86	Grant Thornton	400-450	Competitive
87	BMW Group	20-30	£31,000
88	Deutsche Bank	Unknown	Competitive
89	CMS	65	£25,000 – £43,000
90	Police Now	350	£29,859
91	Siemens	70-80	Competitive
92	Savills	100	£23,000 – £26,000
93	Mondelez International	Unknown	Competitive
94	Nestle	25	Competitive
95	Irwin Mitchell	50	£25,000 – £36,000
96	Charityworks	140	£18,000 – £20,000
97	Lloyd’s	10	Competitive
98	Pfizer	No fixed quota	Competitive
99	Pinsent Masons	68	£23,000 – £41,000
100	AECOM	350	£24,000 – £27,000

Are they really the “top” graduate employers?

The employers that do make The Times’ renowned list are all large corporations that pump thousands of pounds into their employer branding. Why do students and graduates think they are the best? Because these companies have the budget to appear at every university careers fair and they pay to be seen in all the places graduates go.

We’re by no means saying that the opportunities they offer aren’t great. Aldi attracts grads with an impressive £44,000 starting salary and who can complain about that? However, is the list just a glorified popularity contest?

Advice for graduates looking for jobs

If you’re keen to work for a large corporation where you can learn and progress alongside fellow grads then this list may be a good place to start. A few points to bear in mind are:

Graduate roles with these businesses are super-competitive so be ready to fight off the competition and to show the employer that you are the best.
Deadlines for many of these businesses fall early in the academic year. It’s best to check them out in the first term of your final year to ensure that you don’t miss important deadlines.
These really are BIG businesses, so be sure that they are the right fit for your personality. This article might help you to decide.

If you know a large corporation definitely isn’t for you, or you simply aren’t that interested in the roles that the “top 100” have to offer, you still have more than enough choice! Start browsing on these popular job sites and working with graduate recruiters like us and you’ll find graduate opportunities with businesses of all sizes.

We also recommend registering your CV with CV-Library so that employers and recruiters can get in touch with you about relevant opportunities!

What you should look for in your first graduate job

If you want to give your career the best possible start, it’s important to find the right role within the right company for you. There are thousands and thousands of graduate jobs out there; some are great and some are not so great…

Wherever you are looking, there are a few boxes that you should be aiming to tick:

Training. You’re just getting started with your career and for you to be able to grow and progress, you’ll need some great training.
Mentor. Is there someone in the business that you can learn from and look up to? Learning from your superiors and their knowledge and experience will have a big impact on your own performance and future career.
Career progression. Once you’re all trained up and performing well, how can you move up the ladder? You don’t want your first graduate job to be a dead end.
Company culture. At the end of the day, you’ll want to be happy at work and the company culture can make or break this.