Jobs in Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is often referred to as the second city of the UK, and it is home to some of the best universities in the country.

Students who study there, and graduates who stay there, are part of a leading European city. So what impact does the city have on graduates’ career ambitions and academic achievements, and how ready they are for the workplace?

We looked at data collected from graduates who registered to the site in the last five years and compared their preferred sectors, grades, and whether or not they had work experience to the rest of the UK. From the study, we found that Birmingham is able to compete not only with London, but the rest of the country as well.

Sectors

Birmingham’s universities and graduates are varied, but we can see from the most popular sectors for their graduates that they are right in line with the national average. Not only do they match the same sectors, but also the same order of popularity as the rest of the UK, with Management in the top spot, followed by Marketing, Banking, Advertising and PR and Finance.

One thing which stands out from the results is that Birmingham's graduates' career ambitions are extremely varied, and there is no one outstanding career choice. This can be seen in the small difference between the top five preferred sectors: there is just a 7.6 percentage point gap between Management, chosen by 32.5% of Birmingham graduates, and Finance, chosen by 24.9%.

Degree Classification

Universities in Birmingham ring in at the second highest in the UK for awarding First Class degrees. A staggering 11.5% of graduates from Birmingham earn the top classification, putting the West Midlands second only to Manchester with 11.7%, and well over the 9.8% UK average.

As for 2:1s, they are not awarded as often as in cities like Sheffield and Liverpool, but at 56.7% Birmingham's graduates still exceed the national average of 48.1%.

Work Experience

Not only are Birmingham graduates second highest in the UK for achieving top classifications, they are also second highest in the UK for having earned work experience alongside their degrees.

An impressive 17.9% of graduates from Birmingham have work experience, surpassing the national average of 16.6% and only slightly behind Sheffield at 18.7%. No wonder Birmingham's graduates are sought after!