Students from the least advantaged backgrounds earn an average of nearly 10% less than their most advantaged peers six months after graduating in the same subject, according to research from Deloitte.
The researchers analysed approximately 300,000 students for the Fair Access to Work report, and found that the difference in starting salaries between the least and most advantaged students can be as high as 15%, depending on the subject studied. The biggest gaps occur for graduates of law (14.8%), computer science (13.8%) and social studies (13.5%).
There are examples where students from less advantaged backgrounds earn more, such as medicine and dentistry and engineering and technology, although at 2% and 1.4% respectively the differences are minor.
David Sproul, Deloitte’s senior partner and chief executive, called on UK firms to take action on social mobility.
“The research shows that the least advantaged graduates face considerable barriers to employment after graduation, even if they perform as well as their most advantaged peers,” he said. “Improving social mobility is one of the UK’s biggest challenges and its urgency has been brought into sharper focus by events this year.
“It is important that businesses, higher education leaders and the government work together to get this right. Failing to do so limits the talent pool from which companies can recruit and reinforces a perception that the rewards of economic prosperity are reserved for a privileged few.”
Harvey Lewis, Fair Access to Work research director at Deloitte, suggested automation will continue to have an impact on the job market. “As our increasingly digital society ushers in a new era of smart machines the long-established link between a good university degree and a good job is starting to crumble,” he said.
“Many routine manual or cognitive activities currently carried out by humans can increasingly be performed by robots. The skills required in the future are not necessarily technical but instead we will see far greater demand for essential skills such as reasoning, critical thinking and complex problem-solving.”
