Graduates across the UK and beyond are facing a rapidly shifting job market, with increasing competition and changing employer expectations putting pressure on young professionals to rethink their career strategies. On September 30, 2025, BBC Wales reported that graduates were being urged to look locally for job opportunities as a way to boost their chances of employment. This advice comes at a time when competition for graduate roles in the UK has reached record highs, and major companies are slashing the number of places available on their coveted graduate schemes.
According to BBC Wales, the number of graduate job applications has soared by 15% this year, while recruiter Reed revealed that advertised graduate roles have plummeted by 70% compared to two years ago. Big-name firms like Deloitte and KPMG have cut back sharply on their graduate intakes, leaving recent university leavers scrambling for alternatives. Grant Thornton, one of the UK’s top 100 graduate employers, received more than 17,000 applications for just 420 graduate roles in 2025. Richard Waite, the company’s director of people, observed, “What we’re seeing now is that those early applications are higher than they’ve ever been before.” He added, “The marketplace is tough and you need to be on it early and apply as soon as possible to be in with the best chance.”
With almost 950,000 people graduating from UK universities in 2024, and government forecasts suggesting the workforce will need 11 million extra graduates by 2035, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Yet, as BBC Wales highlighted, many graduates are struggling to land their desired jobs. One recent graduate told the BBC she nearly lost hope, having applied for a staggering 647 jobs before finally securing employment.
The fierce competition at large, well-known companies has led to a paradoxical situation: while some sectors are overwhelmed with applicants, others – particularly regional and specialist roles – are experiencing acute skills shortages. Julie Stokes of Cardiff Capital Region, a body working with ten local authorities in south Wales, explained, “When we’ve tried to recruit for finance we’ve had less applications or the level of qualification isn’t quite there.” She noted that while roles in HR or communications attract plenty of interest, specialist positions remain hard to fill.
This trend has prompted experts and recruiters to encourage graduates to broaden their job search beyond the major cities and multinational giants. “Graduates are looking to join those big organisations that can expose them to lots of opportunities both developmental and within their portfolios,” said Ms Morgan, as reported by BBC Wales. “But the advice I’d say to graduates is look at all organisations, even those that are relatively new.”
Recruitment fairs have become a vital bridge between graduates and lesser-known employers. At a recent Darogan recruitment event in Cardiff, about 500 attendees explored opportunities with regional companies. Owain James, event organiser at graduate recruitment firm Darogan, told BBC Wales, “We speak to employers who say ‘we need more applications, we’re not getting enough.’ Not because the opportunities aren’t good, but because they just aren’t as well known as an employer and maybe young people struggle to find those opportunities.”
The event also underscored the sectors experiencing the fastest growth and greatest demand for new talent. According to Careers Wales, creative industries, business, technology, life sciences (including biomedical sciences and microbiology), and the energy sector are among the biggest growth areas in Wales and the wider UK.
The benefits of looking local are not just practical but personal, as demonstrated by two recent graduates working for construction firm Knights Brown on energy projects near their homes in south Wales. Neave Davies, a 22-year-old engineer from Caerphilly county, explained, “After working away in university, I really wanted to come back home and stay within Caerphilly and also be able to build things at home and help the communities that I’m also a part of.” Her colleague Jack Little, who combined an apprenticeship with a degree at the University of South Wales, added, “You can work on projects that you can relate to, and come to work and feel proud knowing you’re delivering something for the community and everyone will benefit from, and you can say I had something to do with that job right there.”
But the story of graduate career choices doesn’t end at the UK’s borders. On the same day, Business Insider and NDTV featured the story of Varun Goyal, a 25-year-old engineer of Indian origin who made a bold career pivot. Goyal, an alumnus of IIT Kanpur and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, left a high-paying quantitative trading job to join an artificial intelligence (AI) startup in the United States. His journey illustrates a different, but equally pressing, set of choices facing today’s graduates.
Goyal’s initial draw to quantitative trading was the high salary and prestige. “Blinded by the initial high salary and prestige, I joined a firm as a quantitative strategist for the summer,” he recalled in his interview with Business Insider. However, after speaking with industry professionals, he found himself more attracted to the collaborative, dynamic culture of startups. “At bigger firms, teams often compete, and you can’t really discuss your work outside your group. As an extrovert who thrives in a collaborative environment, that felt restrictive. The exit options in quant felt more constrained, too,” Goyal explained.
He described the difference between the two fields with a vivid metaphor: “Quant reminded me of a single-lane speed track: fast, sharp, but narrow, while AI felt more like a racing track with a lot of turns and curves.” Despite the longer hours and lower base pay at the AI startup, Goyal was drawn by the learning opportunities and the chance for equity. “The biggest surprise at the startup this past year has been how much I’m learning outside coding. I’m learning to hire, adapt, lead the product direction, and sell. These skills make me more than just an engineer. I’m trying to jump on customer meetings, understand their needs, contribute to hiring decisions, and shadow and learn from the founders where I can,” he said.
The AI sector’s fast pace brings its own challenges. “If we don’t launch the features and tools in a new research paper within a few days, we’ve basically lost that one to the competition,” Goyal noted. Yet, he remains satisfied with his decision: “In AI, I’m in an uncomfortable seat every few months trying to keep up with the market pace, but I’m happy with my decision. I’ve been pushed to grow so much.”
For Goyal, the ultimate motivation was the potential for long-term impact. He likened his role to that of a builder during the Industrial Revolution, laying the foundations for how the world will use AI. “There’s a lot left to be built, and this is the opportunity the brightest graduating minds should take,” he said.
Whether in the UK or abroad, the landscape for graduates is changing rapidly. The stories of local job seekers in Wales and ambitious engineers like Goyal highlight both the challenges and the opportunities of today’s job market. For many, the path to career fulfillment may not be straightforward, but those willing to look beyond traditional routes—and sometimes, beyond their comfort zones—are finding new ways to thrive.
