Industry Insight

The top 100 organisations most popular with graduates

SOURCE: Times Online, 13th September 2007

The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers survey is an annual ranking of those organisations, in the private and public sectors, that new graduates most want to work for.

It is the definitive record of Britain's most prestigious and sought-after graduate recruiters. The 2007 league table is based on interviews conducted by High Fliers Research, with 17,170 final-year university students, who were asked the open-ended question, "Which employer do you think offers the best opportunities for graduates?"

This year, more than 600 different employers were named and the 100 organisations with the most votes form the new Top 100 chart. Despite a fair bit of movement in the rankings this year, some things don't change and the sharp end of the table has a familiar feel to it. If you're at university or have graduated recently then the chances are you'll have seen the recruitment campaigns for trainee accountants on campus. Vacancies in the sector have shot up by more than 80 per cent since 2004 and three of the big four professional services firms are looking to hire at least 1,000 graduates in the 2007-08 recruitment round.

It's no surprise then that these firms dominate the new league table of Britain's top graduate employers published today. The Civil Service, BBC and NHS are unchanged in fourth, fifth and sixth places, but Accenture, the consulting firm, has moved up a place to seventh, overtaking HSBC which slips back a place. The retailer Aldi - which in 2008 is offering new graduates starting salaries of £39,000 - has been ranked in the top ten for the first time at ninth, continuing its rapid rise since entering the Top 100 in 65th place in 2002. The highest-ranking investment bank is Goldman Sachs, which is tenth for a second year.

Among the organisations leaving the Top 100 in 2007 is QinetiQ, the defence employer - which was ranked inside last year's top fifty - and the Ministry of Defence and Dstl. Data Connection, one of the highest climbers last year, has left the list, as have Siemens, Airbus and Sony. Four of last year's new entries failed to retain their places - Virgin, Grant Thornton, the Nationwide Building Society and the Government Legal Service.