Students urged to prepare for work from day one as graduate vacancies hit record low

Students starting higher education courses this month are being urged to start preparing for employment from their first term, as they face an increasingly competitive and fast-changing graduate jobs market.

The warning comes from recruitment and employability expert Jackie Bedford, who has more than 30 years’ experience in the sector and is the Founder and CEO of Step Ahead.

Jackie has launched Get the Job You Want: Graduate Edition after repeatedly encountering capable, well-educated young people who had completed university without understanding how recruitment works or how to demonstrate their value to an employer.

The programme began on 1 July 2026 with a founding cohort of 22 graduates across eight countries. Fifteen have completed it so far. Six cohort members have secured jobs, while others are currently progressing through interviews.

The programme received an average rating of 4.8 out of five across the final survey measures. All 15 respondents rated its content five out of five for being practical and immediately applicable.

Their experiences have reinforced Jackie’s belief that academic achievement and knowing how to secure employment are two different skill sets.

Jackie said:

“Freshers may feel that finding a graduate job is three or four years away, but waiting until their final year to prepare for work is setting themselves up to fail.

“A degree remains enormously valuable, but it does not automatically teach someone how to identify suitable opportunities, interpret what an employer wants, present evidence of their skills or perform effectively during an interview.

“Students need to start preparing for employment from their first term because the labour market they eventually enter may look very different from the one graduates are facing today.”

Jackie believes the scale of the graduate-employment challenge cannot be understood through NEET figures alone.

The Office for National Statistics estimated that 981,000 people aged 16 to 24 were not in education, employment or training between April and June 2026. This represented 13% of all young people in that age group and was 30,000 higher than a year earlier, although 30,000 lower than during the previous quarter.

However, the reporting period ended before most of this summer’s university and college leavers had completed their studies and entered the labour market.

Jackie said:

“The NEET figures are important, but they only capture 16 to 24-year-olds who are entirely outside employment, education or training. They do not tell us whether graduates are finding work that reflects their skills and qualifications.

“A graduate working in hospitality, retail or another stop-gap role is counted as employed. Someone continuing into a master’s is counted as being in education. That can be a positive academic or career choice, but for some it may also postpone a difficult transition into employment. Anyone aged 25 or over falls outside this measure altogether.

“The Class of 2026 is entering one of the toughest graduate jobs markets in years. Those starting university this September will graduate into a market that may look fundamentally different. We need to look beyond a single headline statistic and make sure graduates understand how recruitment works and how to communicate what they can offer an employer.”

Competition for graduate employment is also continuing to intensify.

Adzuna recorded just 8,383 graduate vacancies in July 2026, the lowest number since it began tracking them in 2016 and 45.6% fewer than a year earlier.

Meanwhile, the Institute of Student Employers reports that organisations now receive an average of 140 applications for every graduate vacancy, a record high.

Recent Department for Work and Pensions research found widespread concern among education professionals about young people’s preparation for employment. Almost three-quarters said there was not enough focus on preparing young people for work or teaching them soft skills, while 66% believed work-readiness had declined during the past five years.

Jackie is calling for employability to be embedded throughout every undergraduate degree, rather than concentrated around careers fairs and application support during students’ final year.

She said:

“Students should be exploring where their degree could take them, gaining meaningful experience, building professional relationships and keeping a record of the skills they develop through their studies, part-time work, volunteering and university societies.

“They should also learn how to present themselves professionally, including on LinkedIn, and understand how recruitment processes are changing. Students starting university now need to prepare for the labour market they will enter in three or four years’ time, not simply the one that exists today.

“University should do more than help students earn a qualification. It should also give them the confidence, knowledge and practical skills to navigate the world of work.

“Students are investing years of their lives and significant amounts of money in higher education. We owe it to them to be equally serious about helping them turn that education into a meaningful career.”

Feedback from the cohort has been wholly positive. Alin Linca, a recent Applied Computing graduate from De Montfort University said:

“It strips away the guesswork and gives you a structured, strategic process for understanding what employers actually need, identifying your transferable strengths, and communicating them with clarity and confidence. 

“It’s practical, honest, and – if you do the work – genuinely transformative. I went from applying randomly and getting nowhere, to having a clear strategy, strong evidence, and real confidence going into interviews.”

Meanwhile, Amariah Rigodon – who is currently studying for an MBA at Dublin Business School – added:

“For months my CV was getting rejected. Less than a month after starting this course and tweaking my CV, I got invited to 5 interviews.”

Jackie added:

“Graduates like Alin and Amariah do not lack intelligence, ambition or potential. The recurring problem is that many have never been shown how to translate their academic, personal and work experience into evidence an employer understands.

“Getting hired is a skill, and it is one most people are never actually taught. Once graduates understand what happens on the other side of the hiring table, they can make much more informed decisions about where they apply and how they present themselves.”