One in 10 graduates plan to leave Britain as 'worst job market in decades' sparks mass exodus

A new report has revealed one in 10 graduates are looking to leave Britain for better job opportunities.According to research by graduate recruitment research firm High Fliers, the proportion of final-year students who said they are going to look for a job overseas has risen by a third from 7.8 per cent in 2024 to 10.2 per cent.The study of more than 15,000 students at 30 universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, Warwick and Durham found only 27 per cent of students said they had secured a job in the UK, or elsewhere, for September.In previous years, the figure has usually been around the 35-40 per cent mark. TRENDING Stories Videos Your Say High Fliers founder Martin Birchall told The Times: This is probably the worst time in the last 30 years to be leaving university. The prospects of landing a job this summer are the lowest they’ve been in all the years we’ve been doing this tracking [since 1995].It’s the second lowest it’s ever been and yet this cohort appears to have done more applications and more engagement with employers. They’ve taken part in record numbers of career activities, and more than ever before they started early. Over half of respondents had started job hunting in their first year.You look at how graduate jobs have gone up and down since the Nineties, and every time there’s a dip on the chart you can put a name on it. What we’ve seen now is three years of decline, but we can’t put a name to it. We’re not in a recession, this isn’t a singular national crisis but confidence in business is low and it seems nobody wants to employ young people.One of those looking to leave Britain is Miko, from Rugby, Warwickshire, who is in his final year at Durham University studying natural sciences.The 24-year-old applied for about 80 graduate jobs in London, however about ten companies responded. None of them translated into a final offer, and he decided to move to Germany to do a master’s degree in finance.He said: In London you have eight to ten interviews just for an internship, whereas here, if someone doesn’t like you after two or three rounds, they’re not stringing you along for months to just ghost you or reject you. At home it’s a mess from everyone I know who’s trying to do finance. They’re doing 200 applications, endless online tests and virtual video screenings and never get to speak to a single human being.LATEST DEVELOPMENTSAndy Burnham opens door to handing illegal migrants jobs while Britain's youths battle unemploymentMass migration directly fuelling Britain’s youth unemployment crisis, new research findsNext boss warns of youth unemployment 'crisis' after dramatic fall in entry-level jobsPhoenix Woolnough from York moved to Hong Kong to work as a teacher after graduating with a degree in politics and international relations from Durham University.The 23-year-old said: My closest friends are back in the UK and they struggled so much to find jobs, many of them still haven’t.Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found 174,000 people aged 16-34 emigrated from the UK in the year end to March 2025.While it is difficult to track each individual case, the most popular places to end up are usually English-speaking countries including the US, Canada, Australia or New Zealand, as well as emerging economies such as those in the Gulf or southeast Asia.It comes as a separate survey found more than two-thirds of 18 to 25-year-olds polled are prioritising getting any job over their dream one, while three-quarters are willing to switch industries, relocate and take a lower paid job to secure their perfect role.The CFA Institute 2026 Graduate Outlook Survey also indicated a high level of confidence amid its 1,250 UK-based participants, almost two-thirds of whom are studying, despite the tough job market and the doom and gloom of what is reported about young people getting employment.Senior Director of university programmes at the CFA Institute Peter Watkins said: I think that it goes against that stereotype doesn’t it, of Gen Z-ers and young people not being willing to compromise. I think we’ve seen quite the opposite in these statistics and evidence of being happy to be flexible and relocating, switching, even taking lower paid jobs. It’s not the snowflake attitude that you read about, is it. Or there’s the picky stereotype.Although it’s a bit sad that people don’t get jobs directly in what they want to do, I think it does counter that not being willing to do different kinds of work. I don’t think that that’s true actually, and I think this evidence is supporting that.It comes amid bleak reports about youth unemployment in the UK.Former Labour health secretary Alan Milburn warned in a report last week that a whole-system failure has led to nearly one in seven of the UK’s 16 to 24-year-olds not in employment, education or training, known as Neets.The latest data indicated the number of young people neither working nor learning topped one million for the first time since 2013, reaching 1.01 million in the three months from January to March.Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer described Mr Milburn’s report as “sobering”, but vowed he “will not allow a lost generation”. Our Standards: The GB News Editorial Charter