The degrees UK graduates regret the most

Britain has told school-leavers for decades that a degree is the safest route to a good job. However, last year, employers cut graduate hiring by 8% and increased apprentice hiring by 8% according to the Institute of Student Employers. With the ‘safest’ route no longer guaranteeing employment, it raises the question: do graduates regret the degrees they studied hard for?   

Our report pairs two pieces of research to understand how graduates feel about their degrees. A survey of 1,000 UK graduates aged 21 to 36 who finished a degree in 2021 or later, asked what they studied, whether they regret it and why, whether their job matches their degree, what they earn and what they’d do instead. 

Alongside the survey, we gathered five years of employment and salary records from 44 UK universities to reveal how graduates feel about their degrees, and how those degrees pay off in the job market.  

• More than a third of recent UK graduates (37.5%) regret their degree, and only 41.8% would choose the same subject again. 

• More than half of biological and sports sciences graduates (52.2%) regret their subject, against 21.4% in engineering and technology. 

• Graduates working outside their field (62.6%) are nearly three times more likely to regret their degree than those working in it (21.2%). 

• Among graduates who regret their degree, 1 in 8 (12.8%) blame artificial intelligence (AI) for reducing the jobs they trained for. 

• Creative arts graduates earn a typical £21,000, the lowest of any subject, despite being among the most likely to be in work. 

The survey finds that more than a third of recent graduates (37.5%) regret doing a degree. Within that group, one in 10 (10.3%) regret their choice of subject. Roughly one in four (22.5%) stated that, if given the choice again, they wouldn’t go to university at all.    

Biological and sports sciences is the most regretted subject group, with 52.2% of its graduates wishing they’d chosen differently. Economics follows on 47.2%, with creative arts and design at 47.1%. Despite medicine and dentistry graduates being the best paid among the subjects analysed, 43.9% still regret their degree. Engineering and technology, however, is among the subject groups graduates are least likely to regret (21.4%) and is also among the highest earning.  

Creative arts and design graduates are among the most likely of any subject group to be in work, with 83.4% employed after graduating. The jobs they land, either in their field or out of it, pay a typical £21,000, the lowest of any subject group analysed.   

In fact, they’re not alone: half of the subject groups analysed pay under £27,000, and all record regret above the overall rate of 37.5%. Earning a higher-than-average salary isn’t a guarantee against regret, as studying medicine shows, but earning a lower salary makes it far more likely.

When asked whether they work in a field related to their degree, the study found that graduates who do are far less likely to regret it: just 21.2% stated that they regret their degree. In comparison, 62.6% of graduates who do not work in the same field as their degree stated that they regret it.  

When the study asked regretful graduates to name the biggest reason why, the most common reason was a lack of jobs in their chosen field. More than a quarter (26.1%) said prospects in their field are poor, and a further 14.4% said that the pay for the jobs they aspired to was too low considering the cost of their degree.  

One in eight regretful graduates (12.8%) say that artificial intelligence (AI) has reduced the jobs they trained for. In fact, a study by Randstad found that 38% of employers plan to hire fewer graduates this year because of AI.  

The universities’ own records show that 90.8% of medicine graduates are in work fifteen months after graduating, followed by veterinary science and agriculture (87.7%) and education and teaching (84.1%).  

Creative arts and design graduates find work at the same rate as nursing graduates, 83.4%, level too with architecture and with media and communications. For one of the most regretted, lowest paid subjects in the study, the graduates are among some of the most likely to land a role.  

Computing (81.9%), business management (81.3%) and engineering and technology (79.6%) round out the ten subjects most likely to land a job.  

Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen tops the list with 91.2% of its graduates in work 15 months after finishing, according to the university-reported outcomes data. In fact, universities in Scotland place well, taking the top three places and five of the top ten.

Interestingly, there is no Oxford, Cambridge or any Russell Group university in the top ten. Instead, the list is dominated by modern universities. What sets these universities apart is what they reach: a quarter of University of the West of Scotland graduates studied subjects allied to medicine, and health and teaching account for a third of Edge Hill’s attendees. Degrees like these feed straight into licensed professions.  

The survey asked regretful the choices that graduates would choose if they could start again, and only 21.7% said they would still pick university, while 78.3% named at least one alternative. 

Starting their own business led the list at 37.6%, followed by 25.4% of regretful graduates considering an apprenticeship. 17.9% of individuals would have preferred to learn a skilled trade. 

• Look up the course, not the university. Pay and employment vary more between courses at one university than they do between institutions. 
   

• Get experience in your field while you study. A placement, internship or part-time role is the most reliable route into a job that actually uses the degree. 
   

• Build something you can show while at university. A portfolio or live project gives your first employer evidence of your abilities that a degree classification alone cannot. 
   

• Check whether your field expects further study. For subjects like physics, psychology and law, a degree is the first step and the path to a career runs well beyond graduation. 

“Choosing a degree shouldn’t be based solely on the assumption that it will guarantee you a job after graduation”, says Amanda Augustine, CPCC and resident careers expert at Careerminds UK. “This research shows just how important it is for students to understand where a course can realistically lead, what employers in that field are looking for and whether further training or qualifications will be required. 

“The significant gap in regret between graduates who work in their field and those who don’t also highlights the value of gaining relevant experience while you study. Internships, placements, part-time work and live projects can help students test whether a career path is actually right for them, while developing practical skills, building their professional networks and giving future employers evidence of what they can do”. 

Augustine adds: “And if you already regret your degree, that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to start over. Increasingly, employers are looking at what candidates can do, not simply what they studied. Focus on identifying the transferable skills you’ve already developed, building any additional skills your target role requires and finding opportunities to put those abilities into practice. The goal is to give employers tangible evidence that you can do the job, regardless of the subject printed on your degree”. 

Careerminds UK provides outplacement and career transition support to organisations across the UK, pairing one-to-one coaching with practical tools to help people land their next role, whatever their degree says. 

Careerminds UK wrote to 134 UK universities under the Freedom of Information Act, and 44 returned usable data. Salary figures are the medians they disclosed, excluding distance-learning and postgraduate-only programmes. Employment figures come from HESA Graduate Outcomes open data for 93 universities: full-time UK undergraduates surveyed about 15 months after graduating, 2019/20 to 2021/22 cohorts, with counts rounded to the nearest five and groups under 25 excluded. 

The survey covers 1,000 UK graduates aged 21 to 36 who finished a degree in 2021 or later, run via Pollfish in August 2026 (57.6% female, 42.4% male, mean age 29.3). Subject groups under 50 respondents are combined, and reasons for regret are a share of the 375 who regret their degree.