Tech students find even a first-class degree can’t secure an entry-level role
Towards the end of last year, Rashik Parmar began getting calls from anxious students who had just graduated with degrees in computer science.
“I probably had several dozen come to me saying they were struggling to get their first job,” says Parmar, a former IBM executive who sits on the advisory board at Leeds University’s School of Computer Science. “Lots of parents got in touch, too. I could see what a tough market it was shaping up to be.”
Many of these young people went into computer science as a means of securing a lucrative career for life, but are finding that this long-held belief is now, suddenly, invalid.
In the early 2000s, often considered the heyday of tech, computer science graduates scarcely had time to collect their degrees before being snapped up by huge tech firms. Starting salaries ranged from generous to borderline ludicrous, and the industry became synonymous with lavish perks, juicy stock options and seemingly limitless opportunity. If you could code, the streets were paved with gold.
Recently, those heady days have started to fade. Parmar calls this a “significant reset”, driven by outsourcing overseas and rapid automation through AI. Against this backdrop, computer science may no longer be the low-risk, high-reward route to job security, unlimited opportunity and high salaries.
Tech layoffs have swept through the industry, with close to a quarter of a million employees worldwide losing their jobs in 2025 alone. At the same time, a new generation of startups is scaling at speed with strikingly lean teams.
For students and recent graduates, the consequences are becoming painfully clear. A growing pipeline of new talent, a glut of recently laid-off, experienced engineers and a shrinking pool of junior roles have combined to turn what was once a near-guaranteed career path into a far more precarious bet.
Data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) and Prospects paints a stark picture. Surveying almost 200,000 British people 15 months after graduating in 2022-23, it found that computer science graduates were more likely to be unemployed than those from any other subject.
Nearly one in 10 of computer science graduates was out of work – comfortably the highest unemployment rate by discipline, and well above the graduate average of 6.2pc. And it’s not a blip. Since HESA began collecting comparable data in 2019, unemployment among computer science graduates has remained high or continued to rise.
By contrast, graduates from so-called “soft” humanities subjects fared far better. Unemployment stood at 8.5pc for art, 7.2pc for marketing, 6.4pc for English literature, and just 5.2pc for performing arts – all below computer science.
That collapse has hit entry-level positions hardest; there are now roughly four times as many adverts for senior tech roles as junior ones. As a result, many graduates are struggling to secure their first foothold.
‘It’s disheartening’
After school, Joseph* began working in logistics. He found his interest piqued by the puzzle-solving it involved, and software development felt like the natural next step. Guided by advice from friends already in the field, he opted to study computer science at a red brick university in northern England.
Graduating with a first, and proud of what he had achieved, Joseph set about applying for junior developer roles. He had watched friends do the same degree and move into stable jobs five years ahead of him, and felt quietly confident that he, too, had done everything right.
But he has applied to roughly 100 positions, with only two progressing to the next stage. “After all of that effort, I’ve had absolutely no feedback on any of the applications – it’s disheartening,” he says. “I was hoping my grade would help me stand out, but that doesn’t seem to have been the case.”
The picture for early-career computer science roles is tough. The number of openings for entry-level tech positions on recruitment platform Welcome to the Jungle (WTTJ) is shrinking fast. Entry-level software-engineering jobs posted per month have fallen by about 40pc since early 2023, and by 10pc compared to a year ago.
Even as AI-related roles multiply on the platform, WTTJ has recorded a 10pc year-on-year reduction in entry-level and junior jobs overall, about 500 fewer postings each month. “At an individual jobseeker level, that can feel tough,” says Caroline Fischer, of WTTJ. “There’s no doubt that it’s a hard time: jobs in most tech companies are being scrutinised, budgets have tightened.”
These pressures compound trends that have been shrinking demand for junior tech talent for nearly a decade. A long-running shift toward outsourcing has steadily reduced the number of entry-level roles, as companies send routine development work to lower-cost overseas teams. At the same time, rising automation has taken over much of the grunt work juniors used to learn on.
Some companies have openly acknowledged replacing workers with AI: in June, Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy said widespread AI deployment would “reduce our total corporate workforce”, and by October, 14,000 corporate roles were cut. Others have been less explicit, but their hiring freezes, layoffs, and rapid AI adoption tell a similar story.
In July, Microsoft laid off 9,000 employees, many of them software engineers, after chief executive Satya Nadella revealed that 30pc of the company’s code was already being written by AI.
‘I have £90,000 of debt, but it felt like the right thing to do’
Adam Mackay, 42, began a computer science degree at Wolverhampton University in 2020. He had already spent six years in the industry, earning under £30,000, and hoped a degree would boost both his prospects and the income he’d sacrificed while caring for his two children.
When he graduated with a first, he figured: why stop there? “By doing a part-time Master’s, there’s very little excuse for companies not to hire me,” he says. “I have £90,000 of student debt to repay, but it felt like the right thing to do.”
Now finishing his dissertation, Adam has been firing off around 40 job applications a week for two months, with no replies. He’s been closely watching the AI boom and isn’t feeling optimistic.
“These big companies say AI will augment roles and free people up for more enjoyable tasks, but if AI is filling all the entry-level jobs, what else can graduates do?” he says, noting that he knows people with similar credentials who have already applied to 1,000 roles.
The process feels punishing. Applications come with competency tests that feel “Google-level”, despite being mostly for local factory and data-centre roles.
“In the early 2000s, you’d have a proper interview with a recruitment agency before you even applied,” he says. “Now it’s an exhausting game of rewriting every CV, probably only to get rejected by an AI keyword scan.”
A visit to his son’s secondary school has Mackay contemplating a switch to teaching. “AI won’t replace teachers anytime soon, so I could do one extra year for a PGCE and keep my head above water until I retire,” he says. “I’m not sure it’s foolproof though; lots of people in the sector might be thinking the same.”
He worries the longer he sits on the shelf, the slimmer his chances of landing the stable, well-paid role he set out on this path for.
It’s hard to predict how the market will shake out – not just for computer science graduates, but for anyone seeking white-collar work. LinkedIn data from November show hiring fell 10.5pc in the year to September.
Joseph is relieved to have just secured a junior developer role at a digital agency, thanks in part to an endorsement post a family friend wrote for him on LinkedIn.
“My logistics experience definitely helped, and the butterfly effect of that post shows how crucial networking is for opening doors in this industry,” he says. “I’m very grateful the company took a chance on me.”
*Names have been changed