What Do UK Graduates Actually Earn? The Real Numbers from Tax Records

Every year, universities publish glossy employment statistics. Every year, those statistics paint an optimistic picture. And every year, graduates enter the workforce and wonder why their payslip does not match the brochure.

The problem is not that universities lie. It is that most graduate salary data comes from surveys — voluntary questionnaires filled in by a self-selecting group of respondents, typically six months after graduation. If you earned a good salary, you are more likely to respond. If you moved abroad or went travelling, you probably did not bother. The result is data that skews high and tells you almost nothing about the long-term trajectory of a degree.

There is a better source. And most people have never heard of it.

LEO: The Data Source Nobody Talks About

The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes (LEO) dataset is produced jointly by the Department for Education, HMRC, and the Student Loans Company. It does not rely on surveys. Instead, it links university records directly to tax returns, tracking every UK-domiciled graduate’s earnings through the PAYE system.

This means LEO captures what graduates actually earn — not what they say they earn, not what they think they earn, but what HMRC records show they earned. And it tracks them at 1, 3, 5, and 10 years after graduation.

The dataset covers every subject area across every UK university. It breaks down by gender, region, and institution. It is, without exaggeration, the most comprehensive picture of graduate earnings that exists in the UK.

The National Picture

Across all subjects, the median graduate earns approximately £27,000 one year after finishing their degree. That figure climbs to £32,500 at three years, £35,800 at five years, and £40,000 at ten years.

Those are reasonable numbers. They are also averages across wildly different subjects and outcomes.

Subject Matters More Than Most People Think

The variation between subjects is not subtle. It is enormous.

Highest-earning subjects at 5 years after graduation:

• Medicine and Dentistry: £52,000+ median
• Economics: £42,000+
• Computing: £38,000+
• Engineering: £37,500+
• Mathematical Sciences: £37,000+

Lowest-earning subjects at 5 years:

• Creative Arts and Design: £24,000
• Agriculture: £25,500
• Psychology: £26,500
• Education: £27,000
• Philosophy and Religious Studies: £27,000

The gap between the highest and lowest is roughly double. A computing graduate at the median earns in five years what a creative arts graduate may take a decade to reach.

This is not a commentary on the value of creative arts. It is a statement about the labour market. The skills that employers pay most for are not evenly distributed across degree subjects.

The Gender Pay Gap Starts Early

LEO data reveals something uncomfortable: the gender pay gap among graduates opens immediately.

At one year after graduation, male graduates earn roughly 8% more than female graduates across all subjects. By five years, that gap widens to 12-15%. By ten years, it can exceed 20% in some fields.

Part of this is explained by subject choice — men are more likely to study engineering and computing, women more likely to study education and social care. But even within the same subject, male graduates tend to out-earn female graduates. In business and management, the five-year gap is around 10%. In law, it is closer to 8%.

The data does not tell us why. It does not capture hours worked, seniority, career breaks, or negotiation patterns. But it makes the gap visible in a way that survey data often obscures.

Region Shapes Your Earnings

Where you end up working after graduation has a significant impact on your earnings. London graduates — or more precisely, graduates working in London — earn considerably more across almost every subject.

A computing graduate working in London earns roughly 25-30% more than one working in the North East at the five-year mark. For business graduates, the gap is similar. Even in healthcare, where salaries are more standardised through NHS pay bands, London weighting adds a meaningful premium.

However, higher salaries in London come with higher costs. When adjusted for housing and living expenses, the advantage narrows considerably — and in some cases reverses entirely.

What This Means for Prospective Students

If you are choosing a degree, LEO data will not tell you what to study. That depends on what you are good at, what you care about, and what kind of life you want. But it can help you make that decision with open eyes.

A few things worth knowing:

Vocational degrees tend to have clearer salary trajectories. Medicine, nursing, engineering, and computing all lead to relatively predictable career paths with strong demand. The trade-off is less flexibility if you change your mind.

Arts and humanities degrees have wider variance. The median earnings are lower, but the range is broader. Some English graduates end up in publishing earning £25,000. Others end up in corporate communications earning £55,000. The degree opens doors, but which door you walk through matters enormously.

Postgraduate study boosts some subjects more than others. In business and economics, an MBA or Masters can add 15-20% to earnings within five years. In creative arts, the premium is minimal.

Institution matters, but less than subject. A Russell Group computing degree pays slightly more than a post-92 computing degree, but both pay significantly more than a Russell Group creative arts degree. Subject is the bigger lever.

How We Built This Into CareerMetrics

We processed the complete LEO dataset — covering 28 subject areas, 135 sub-specialisations, 12 UK regions, and earnings trajectories spanning a decade — and built three tools around it:

Degree Outcomes Dashboard lets you explore earnings by subject, compare against the national baseline, and break down by gender and years after graduation. Every number comes directly from LEO/HMRC data.

Degree ROI Calculator takes your tuition costs, maintenance loan, and chosen subject, then models your cumulative earnings against a non-graduate baseline, including student loan repayments under Plan 2 and Plan 5. It tells you when — and if — your degree breaks even financially.

Career Pathways maps degree subjects to likely career destinations, showing which occupations graduates actually end up in and what those occupations pay.

The Limitations

LEO is powerful but imperfect. It only captures PAYE earnings, which means self-employed graduates are partially invisible. It does not capture wealth, benefits, or non-monetary outcomes. And it cannot tell you about job satisfaction, work-life balance, or career fulfilment.

A creative arts graduate earning £26,000 in a job they love may be happier than an economics graduate earning £45,000 in a job they hate. LEO cannot measure that. Nothing can, really.

But for the question “what will I likely earn?” — LEO is the closest thing to a definitive answer that exists in UK education data.

Explore the Data

All of the data referenced in this article is available to explore on CareerMetrics. Start with the Degree Outcomes Dashboard to see how your subject compares, or use the ROI Calculator to model the financial return on your specific situation.