It is the question in the back of every student’s mind: will I find a job? Considering that graduate employment at the UK’s leading employers has fallen by 24.5% since 2022, and estimates show that there are likely to be even fewer jobs available for graduates in 2026, it seems less and less likely that students will find jobs upon graduating. A 2025 study by Universities UK demonstrated that just 59% of graduates are in full-time employment (of any type) 15 months after graduation.
University has long been pushed as a path to guaranteed employment. In 1999, Tony Blair declared a target: 50% of young adults to go into higher education by 2010, aiming towards economic growth and more youth employment. Tuition fees were just £1000 per year, means tested, and students received higher grants and bursaries to incentivise them towards university.
Whilst this target was achieved in 2019, before being scrapped by Starmer in 2025, the promise of a guaranteed graduate job seems to be disappearing more and more. Some political parties have blamed ‘Mickey Mouse’ degrees and lower standards of entry at low-ranked universities, but graduate employment is falling year by year, even in the most essential areas. Although a degree in a vocational field such as healthcare may seem like a secure path to attaining a job for life, NHS hiring freezes throughout the UK have meant that this has not been the case in recent years.
Last year, 30,000 doctors applied for 10,000 posts following their foundation training, with 52% left with no substantive employment. Additionally, 75% of midwives did not feel confident that they would secure a job after graduation. The situation has not improved this year either: in April, the two Welsh universities offering paramedic science degrees (Wrexham and Swansea) cancelled their 2026 intake due to the lack of NHS job vacancies. “As a first-year diagnostic radiography student myself, This is also a fundamental issue with the HEIW bursary.
Around 80% of current thirdyear radiography students at Cardiff are funded by the bursary, which stipulates that students must work in Wales for 2 years after graduation, or face repaying £30,000 in tuition fees. Without the ability to secure a job, many students are forced to move home, with many living hours away from Cardiff. This means that they will have to travel back and forth to attend interviews, and are unable to commit to renting accommodation in Wales.
As a first-year diagnostic radiography student myself, I have seen first-hand the worry and stress experienced by third-year students who have not been able to secure jobs, with a lack of band 5 posts released.
Furthermore, HEIW have failed to address this, with students feeling that they have been unclear about how many jobs they must apply to before being released from the bursary, and how much time they have to secure an NHS job before repayments begin. Overall, the graduate job market appears unfortunately bleak, even in areas that have long been hailed as leading to a guaranteed job. We can all attest to the fact that the NHS is understaffed and underfunded: in May 2025, the number of people waiting over 36 weeks for treatment was 22.2 times higher than in May 2019, pre-pandemic, but hiring freezes are preventing this from being addressed.
Graduates in all areas are struggling to secure jobs, and even the NHS is no exception.