Navigating the Job Market: a 2025 Graduate’s Experience

The UK may be in the throes of ‘the worst job market in decades’, according to job website Adzuna, with graduate jobs reportedly down almost 50% on last year. For graduates, this appears as a daily cause of concern, with recent reports that one in 10 graduates plans to leave the country to seek work abroad. For others, there is a severe effect on mental health with increased risk of suicide. The job pyramid may be changing, becoming effectively narrower at its base with fewer entry level jobs available, seemingly due to investment shortages and attempts to streamline infrastructure through AI adoption. I have not been immune to this struggle as a recent graduate myself.

Here’s my story.

Graduation

I will soon be a Graduate Outcome Survey respondent having graduated in spring/ summer of 2025, completing a BA, and two MAs from Russell Group universities. I’ve worked full-time in HR for a year. I was aware that the job market would be challenging, but thought my strong qualifications would set me apart. How wrong I was.

Neither school nor university prepared me for the harsh reality of the graduate job market. Advice felt generic, with job matches beyond my discipline. How the job market is affected by AI-led Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) wasn’t recognised. Fortunately, I gained some work experience in my sector before graduating, donating labour where I could but internships were scarce. Dream jobs seemed to follow years of unpaid work, penalising those from less-privileged backgrounds, while others’ parents footed the bill for graduate living costs.

Job Centre

The bureaucracy I encountered at the Job Centre was a low point. It saw me passed around to various ‘advisors’ and ‘employment experts’, who would ask me if I needed help writing my CV or cover letters. Each time, I repeated that I could write well (my two MAs would speak to that). While university employment teams suggested graduate-level employment, and solid careers, I was asked repeatedly if I wanted to be a security guard or industrial cleaner.

Appointments were biweekly, unavoidable and took time away from job searching and productivity. Missing an appointment came with heavy penalties. After landing some graduate freelance work, I was transferred to the self-employment team, which differed through fewer meetings but required I join The Restart Scheme (outsourced in London). The best advice was about making CVs more appealing to the AI ATS screening.

Job applications

I have applied for c.300 jobs since graduation. The vast majority did not reply. Overstretched or not, hiring teams should recognise that as this is incredibly demotivating and casts a poor light on the organisation. Perhaps a more challenging hiring process would attract only the most committed. A few are now moving to timed, situational, or experience-based questions to address this. 

Good applicants or good workers

I have only had a one per cent interview hit rate so far (others report 0.1 per cent). However, when pitching myself as a freelancer, I have secured all the work I submitted for, motivating me to join the King’s (formerly Prince’s) Trust to now start my own business. This reflects a wider trend of young people choosing to go out on their own.

My thoughts

In recent decades, the school careers system has made massive strides in offering tailored support, yet later in life, this can feel ‘one-size-fits-all’. Young people are caught in a bind: the cost of living, fewer opportunities, and infrastructure which is neither kind nor fit for solution-finding. 

It is therefore timely to update graduate career support: increase work partnerships, advise on industry’s use of AI, invest in mental health and, match graduates with skills gaps in the current and future labour market. 

#UniversitiesUK #graduateoutcomes #HigherEducation #graduatejobs