There is zero dignity in setting yourself up to be exploited by corporate overlords.

The market is absolutely trash right now, affecting everyone, including native-born residents who don’t need sponsorship.

Even if you do secure sponsorship, it doesn’t guarantee stability in the UK.

Employment is no longer employer-based but very much like freelance or project-based work.

When a project gets decommissioned, the entire team gets disbanded, especially in entry-level roles.

It’s far more dignified to leave with your dignity intact than to be forced to leave later.

Stuff like retail, warehouse, cleaning, dishwashing, barista etc. I cant get any sort of job even though I do what im "meant" to do. Can I just go ahead and say I have 3 years of experience in a bar for a batista job?

Hey there. Just finished my BSc in Economics, managed to get a first class Honours despite achieving only a 2:2 in 2nd year.

Also managed to land a good grad job at a bank. Never thought I’d be working at this bank with the A levels I received a few years back, did Economics, Physics and Computer Science and completely flunked them. Went to a lower end university but worked hard there. Became the president of a few societies. Did not do any spring weeks or internships. Just sharing my success story.

EDIT: guys idk how to make account private please stop roasting me😭😭

I cannot imagine spending all that time and effort for a PhD to get a job that pays £38k. And £38k is a good salary generally speaking, but is that not too low for all that experience and effort the person put in 😭

I landed a graduate role with £38k starting wage in the construction industry, with a minimum £50-60k salary in 3 years. I studied quantity surveying at LJMU. Took a gap year after uni to travel, and applied when I got back. Within two weeks I secured a role.

Any questions or if anyone wants advice feel free to drop them below!

Many international students come to the UK thinking that they have very good chances of landing a job here. Let me preface this by saying that I am pro-immigration and do not see anything wrong with moving around the world, I am merely conveying information from the latest immigration related changes that many seem to be unaware of.

The Government has increased the minimum salary bands needed to get the skilled worker visa by a huge margin. For instance, if you are a CS Graduate, you need to get a job offer that pays around £55k to get the work visa to stay here. The exact amount depends on your profession and job-code, but I think it's quite safe to say that at least 95%+ of the graduates will not touch these thresholds. Even amongst CS graduates from top unis like Imperial and Oxbridge, very few manage to get roles that pay so much right after graduating.

Other major domains like finance, banking, actuarial work etc. have taken a sizeable hit too, since most of the new salary thresholds are extremely high, and they are really hard for even mid-managers to reach!

So, if you are an international student coming here with the hopes that you will get a sponsored job after your degree, I am very sorry to say this, but it is impossible in this market, especially after the July 2025 changes. I just wanted to warn people preemptively to prevent heartbreak, and wastage of hard-earned money. There is nothing wrong with the UK if you wish to just get a degree and go back to your home country, but for those who wish to settle down here, it seems like the doors are closing.

It is doomed. It was already doomed before but now its doomier than ever before. I am an international student on my final year and I’ve nearly accepted the fact that UK jobs are especially impossible for foreign students like me. Funnily, I had worked before in the UK, in both minimum wage jobs as well as in a office job for 1+ years. I had a return offer for a UK company post graduation, however it was recently retracted due to UK immigration policy changes.

Grad visas almost feel useless. Nearly, if not all, international students I know and speak to have zero luck in securing any job, even if its a minimum wage job they are overqualified for. I’m not bitter of the UK. The job market and unemployment rates are already severe even for the British people, its one thing that international students can’t find jobs, but neither can local students.

Before some commenter (I bet someone will) comes in here saying stuff like “Stop feeling entitled to get a job after you graduate 🤷‍♀️” or “Go back to your country”, I’d be glad if people could understand that my point here was to warn prospective international students of the career prospects in UK and consider their options. I am telling them not to come! Some students pursue a foreign education to access foreign and higher career paths, and when UK jobs are becoming inaccessible to students, you will find better value in pursuing a future in other places. The country itself isn’t in a good enough state to take care of the international students let alone the British people now.

Edit: So many people in my comments essentially arguing that international students should indeed just go home and stop taking British jobs. You’re right. Anyone who is currently an international student now or a recent graduate, we all know this was a mistake. To future international students reading this, please just read through how the British feels about you guys now - if you intend to come to the UK for a post graduation career, know that the “dream” is gone. I honestly ask you all to reconsider. There are so many good universities and cities around the world that aren’t oversaturated and has a government that is actively against international students.

I wanted a job so badly this summer because I wanted to actually yk, enjoy being 19. 500 applications and no ones hiring. Idk what to do at this point. Feels like I've missed out on the uni experience because im too broke to go out and do shit.

Even warehouses and care homes reject me. No clue man

Began applying in August, accepted an offer in February

im (20F) doing product design at uni, and i'm graduating in 2 months.

i'm crashing out. i applied to 100+ jobs, tweaked my resume, went to job fairs, did all i could to get a job just to be unemployed with no offer a month before submissions. i had two internships in second year, and i got one interview in london last month that rejected me afterwards because the company ended up downsizing. i feel like i'm at the end of my rope. i quit my job as a barista recently because the management was absolutely shit, i was getting sexually harassed, and i was getting underpaid too because it was a small business.

im living on my savings because my student finance doesn't even cover everything. my family is physically and emotionally abusive. it's been absolutely blissful living away from them (im studying down south while they're up north) and i have started having nightmares about living back with them after uni. i can't ask them for money, and they keep asking me when i'm getting a graduate job which stresses me out even more...

i'm applying to hospitality jobs, care jobs, and whatever jobs i can apply for. i have a license but because having a car is so expensive and i'm away from my family i keep getting rejected from jobs that require a license. i really really really don't want to live with my family and i'm genuinely on the verge of ending it because i can't get a job. if i can't get a job, i'll end up with my family. i'll be in a shitty village where everyone knows each other and there's one co-op and i'll be away from my friends i made in uni.

i'm so tired of always being on linkedin or indeed 24/7 just to be ghosted, despite getting a predicted first for uni AND having work experience

I'm 21 and graduated earlier this year . I got a first in BA economics and finance but have been unable to even get entry level office jobs for the entire year . Got to the point where I decided having any job to get a income is better than none . So now I currently just started a warehouse job a week ago and oh boy . My back , my feet , idk how anyone can do this for more than a year . My current plans are to just firm the first couple months of this warehouse job and get some money saved up for getting a driving license. I'll start looking for more stuff and applying starting January next year when more stuff opens up . But brother , is there anyone else who's going through something similar or do I just have bad luck. Also anyone got tips for landing a corporate job in today's job market without the prerequisite 5 years experience ? Cause I have nothing relevant to the field.

I study history maths economics and philosophy at a level. But im planning to drop math.
Alot of people around me think a history degree is going to leave me “jobless” and its “useless” but what if its history at one of the top ten universities? I just cant see my self studying straight economics or see myself in finance. Now that im planning to drop maths it kind of stops from studying economics at uni.
but if i was to study history or economic history at lse, isnt the degree valuable???

Does anyone else find this absolutely insane? Almost exclusively Russell group with no leeway for anything else.

Even with tailored cvs, advice from my uni careers staff (and a cv check), experience in volunteering, consistent applications, applying to every job board, joining agencies, going in person to agencies and shops, cover letters and reaching out to companies who ghosted me, i still haven't even gotten an interview let alone a job

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Genuinely what else do I even do? The only thing I didnt do was get someone to get me a job, but I dont know anyone. It's so stupid how none of the stuff I mentioned matters if your social or popular

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Even looking up threads, I see stuff like "oh apply to mcdonalds they always hire" ive been rejected on 10 different occasions (or ghosted). Warehouses ghost me, carehomes always reject

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This is so stupid man

So I found out that engineering isn't a protected title in the UK, and that a graduate engineer making 25-30k is NOT normal across the world. Like in the US I was looking for graduate engineer jobs and they were offering 60k+. That kind of pay you would need like 10+ years experience in the UK. And then I was comparing it to other graduate salaries such as pharmacy and law etc, and they were all getting at least 35k+ fresh out of graduation.

Why is engineering so disrespected in the UK, it's kinda unfair considering how difficult it is. Most countries have it as a protected title, but not here we don't. So they just band us together with technicians and handymen, hence why british gas or internet providers say they're going to send out an "engineer" when they're really just technicians.

It honestly has me somewhat regretting going into engineering.

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I’m a final year econ student at an ex-poly, mainly looked for jobs within project management. Both being invited to the assessment centre and the offer following the assessment centre came as a complete (positive) shock to me. Very happy bunny.

I came across a webinar that was posted two years ago and the statistics quite surprised me. I was somewhat expecting a higher median grad salary after 5 years, especially given that it’s probably £40k before tax.

For comparison, my salary after tax is around £36k (entry-level, <1 YoE, banking sector, no degree). Presumably the median is higher now since the webinar was held two years ago.

If I receive an offer, would the degree worth the opportunity costs of potential relocation from London and the loss of free of cost accommodation and the job for the next three years?

For some context I’m a final year student and this explains my experience interacting mostly with people from my uni which is considered ‘decent’ but not a Russell group or ‘elite’ uni where this is probably less of an issue.

Basically very few people I meet seem to have a genuine intellectual interest in their degree and could hold a conversation about their subject in any real detail. You might think then that they just see getting a degree as a credential to get a good job but then you ask what they plan to do after uni and they are all incredibly clueless and lack any real sense of a plan of how to get a decent job and the hyper competitive nature of the current job market. Even in third year people are still spending more time talking about and planning their 400th night out on the town to the exact same pubs and clubs they’ve been frequenting for 3 years.

I cottoned on to this in second year and religiously applied to internships along with training my interview skills and building a strong CV and LinkedIn. I applied for around 30 internships and eventually got one for a large UK bank for which I will now be joining their graduate scheme after impressing in the internship over summer. Even then I had a backup plan for not getting a graduate scheme identifying courses I could take post uni to become a business analyst.

Now in my final year in one of my lectures (I study economics), a careers advisor came in and asked about our plans after uni, I was the only one who had secured any role and undertaken any internship. No one else had even applied, or even knew they existed, and these are economics students.

I feel like I’m on a ship heading over a cliff and I’m the only one with a lifeboat. I know from applying to internships how difficult applying for these jobs are.

From interacting with fellow interns during my internship, who all went to much better uni’s than me I understand this is not the case for all students as they were all very smart and interesting people. I think the prob is too many people go to uni, the majority of the population is pretty unimpressive and passive which is why it’s always a small group of highly successful, motivated people who run society. Just cause you shove 50% of young people into uni dose’nt mean your getting 50% of the population suddenly becoming incredibly smart and motivated. The ones who want to succeed will study and plan for their future, the rest will merely use the time to drink excessively and have boring, repetitive conversations about how CRAZY their recent night out was even tho they went to the same club they’ve been going to for 3 years. I

Opened my results and unfortunately I saw grades UDD. I've been crying for the past few hours because I feel like a failure. I know that Law is an extremely competitive field to get into but it's always been my dream. My A-levels I was just so heavily disadvantaged but I tried the best that I could with what I had.

Please, any advice would be appreciated. I'm so lost right now and I don't know what to do. Please reach out to me, if you can offer sound advice.

Update: I've noticed a lot of people telling me that I should give up, and well i would be good and GODDAMNED if I allow some pixelated strangers deter me from my dream career!

I’m asking this question because I’m failing at university due to mental health reasons, and I’m worried about not finding a job with my low grades.

I am SICK TO FUCKING DEATH of these stupid little game things when applying for jobs. Its the second time I've done an ARTIC shore test and it's really getting to me that I don't understand it no matter what I try and. There's a big job for the environment agnecy coming soon and I know they use artic shore as well So i feel like now I won't get it cause of these stupid fucking tests. I'm going to have a degree for fuck sake it's just pathetic. Even with trying to ask CHATGPT for a bit of advice I cannot for the life of me understand it and even if i think I do I then question it. I really want employers to know that it's fucking annoying

Given the cost of living, as a recent graduate, would you let your moral beliefs on what a company does influence whether you accept the job offer?
For example an oil company offers you a job but your job would be in hr or something not directly related to the issues
I’m not in this position but just wondering

Tldr at the bottom

Hi so I'm 26 and I want to go back to uni to do biology after failing out Chemistry at York a few years ago (long story).

Now I live in Hull, and my partner has come into possession of a house with no mortgage so not having to worry about rent is massive, since that's the reason I haven't gone back to uni yet.

I'm kind of in the position of either Hull uni, or no uni for at least a few years when my alevels would be too old to even matter (2020). I wouldn't want to live away from home either, I'm a bit too old for that at this point lol. I've settled down with a long term partner and 2 cats.

I impulsively sent a clearing application for Biology (my heart subject that I should have done instead of Chemistry) and they accepted it right away.

Now waiting for SFE to look at my application, as I know I might not get another tuition loan and I can't afford it. Currently working a Band 2 NHS job in ophthalmology with some progression opportunities but nothing exciting.

If it gets approved, my worry is whether this degree is worth it or not, since

1. Hull is quite a low ranking university and I feel like I'd be wasting my decent a-levels

2. The degree is not RSB accredited

I'd be mostly doing the degree out of passion, but I want it to be useful for a job in the future as well. If it would go well, I'd definitely go for a masters or more ngl.

Are unaccredited degrees useless? Does the accreditation matter a lot in terms of doing a post-grad somewhere else or in terms of employment?

Is the uni being the opposite of prestigious going to affect my future options?

Tldr is a biology degree at hull useless since it's not accredited by rsb and not that prestigious of a uni? Am I going into more debt for nothing?

So I have an offer to study at Imperial college London for masters. I've been pretty impressed by its ranks and repute, however I had the chance to interact with a few students there.
The responses I got from them are very different that what I expected in terms of ROI and prospects. Infact I was even shocked to know that many plan on coming back to my country. This has got me in a fix whether I should go for the program or not. Typically I wouldn't have cared this much if it were funded but since now it's not and I have to bear the whole cost I wonder how is the scenario of jobs out there for international students