Going to a Russell Group uni is guaranteed to get you offers for great grad jobs… right? Um, I hate to break it to you, but a surprisingly low amount of recent Russell Group uni grads have full-time jobs in 2025. Your odds of getting a full-time job are very different depending on which uni you go to. So, here are all the Russell Group unis ranked by how few recent grads have full-time jobs in 2025.
A relatively low number of Oxbridge grads got full-time jobs. This might be pretty surprising, since the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford are supposedly the best unis in the UK, or whatever. Well, a higher proportion of Oxbridge students go on to do another degree than grads from other UK unis do. 13.8 per cent of Cambridge grads and 13.2 per cent of Oxford grads were in full-time study 15 months after leaving, compared to just 5.3 per cent of grads from other unis. This explains why fewer of them have full-time jobs than you might expect.
The percentages refer to the amount of students from the 2023 to 2024 academic year who were in full-time employment within 15 months of graduating, divided by the total number of grads from that uni who responded to the survey that year. Are you following me?
Obviously, just because someone isn’t in full-time employment, that doesn’t meant they have nothing to do. Plenty of those grads who don’t have a full-time job could be studying for a procrastination Master’s degree, or working part-time, or travelling, or caring for another person, or just living their lives.
So, here are all the Russell Group unis, ranked by how few grads have full-time jobs in 2025:
24. London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) – 72.3 per cent
23. Imperial College London – 67.4 per cent
22. Queen’s University Belfast – 64.5 per cent
21. University of Southampton – 64.2 per cent
Behold, the one pretty building at the University of Southampton
(Credit: FlickScully)
20. University of Birmingham – 63.4 per cent
19. University of Edinburgh – 63.0 per cent
18. University of Sheffield – 62.7 per cent
=15. Cardiff University – 61.8 per cent
=15. University of Exeter – 61.8 per cent
=15. University of Leeds – 61.8 per cent
14. University College London (UCL) – 61.6 per cent
13. University of Manchester – 61.5 per cent
12. King’s College London (KCL) – 60.5 per cent
11. Newcastle University – 60.2 per cent
10. University of Warwick – 59.8 per cent
These Warwick students look happy! (Despite being Warwick students)
9. University of Liverpool – 59.7 per cent
8. University of Nottingham – 59.2 per cent
7. University of Glasgow – 58.7 per cent
6. University of Cambridge – 57.3 per cent
5. University of York – 56.9 per cent
4. University of Bristol – 56.7 per cent
3. University of Oxford – 56.5 per cent
2. Queen Mary University of London – 54.6 per cent
1. Durham University – 53.8 per cent
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