These are the UK universities with the highest earning graduates

Lara Billington
Content Marketing Executive

If money is on your mind, these are the universities you should be attending. 

Using data from the HESA Graduate Outcome survey and Adzuna, a job search engine, UK savings marketplace Raisin UK has revealed which universities are producing the highest earning grads. 

It'll be no surprise to hear that Oxford and Cambridge came out on top with graduates expected to be earning around £34,000 within five years of leaving university. Plenty of other Russell Group universities including Durham, Manchester, Birmingham and Bath also rank in the top 20. 

London-based universities seemed to perform well too with UCL, Brunel, King's College London and Queen Mary all producing high-earners; this could be linked to London's higher cost of living. 

If you're interested in finding out whether or not the £9k a year and tens of thousands of pounds of debt was worth it, here's the top 20 universities with the highest earning grads. 

 

1. University of Oxford 

Average salary within five years of graduating: £34,802 

 

 

 

2. University of Cambridge 

Average salary within five years of graduating: £34,720 

 

 

 

3. University College London

Average salary within five years of graduating: £32,757

 

 

 

4. Kings College London 

Average salary within five years of graduating: £31,889

 

 

 

5. University of Edinburgh

Average salary within five years of graduating: £31,170

 

 

 

6. University of Warwick  

Average salary within five years of graduating: £30,510

 

 

 

7. University of Manchester

Average salary within five years of graduating: £29,974

 

 

 

8. University of Bristol

Average salary within five years of graduating: £29,961

 

 

 

9. University of Nottingham

Average salary within five years of graduating: £29,906

 

 

 

10. University of Bath 

Average salary within five years of graduating: £29,876

 

 

 

11. University of Durham 

Average salary within five years of graduating: £29,260

 

 

 

12. Buckinghamshire New University 

Average salary within five years of graduating: £29,243 

 

 

 

13. University of Reading 

Average salary within five years of graduating: £29,175

 

 

 

14. University of Southampton 

Average salary within five years of graduating: £29,044 

 

 

 

15. Brunel University 

Average salary within five years of graduating: £29,004

 

 

 

16. Heriot-Watt University

Average salary within five years of graduating: £28,868

 

 

 

17. University of Birmingham 

Average salary within five years of graduating: £28,798

 

 

 

18. Oxford-Brookes University 

Average salary within five years of graduating: £28,795


 

 

 

19. University of Sussex 

Average salary within five years of graduating: £28,653

 

 

 

20. Queen Mary 

Average salary within five years of graduating: £28,302