5 predictions for graduate recruitment in 2025

Rebecca Fielding, founder and managing director of Gradconsult, considers what the graduate recruitment landscape will look like over the next 12 months…

What does 2025 hold for the student and graduate recruitment market you ask? Here are my top five predictions, in what I expect to be a tricky year for the sector.

1. AI reaches a tipping point employer side

Thanks predominantly to rapid student adoption of new applicant AI tools, we saw the number of applications per vacancy rising by 26% in the 2023/24 season (ISE Student Recruitment Survey 20241), and recruiters are reporting this rapid volume increase only accelerating in the current 2024/25 season. While there are options to reduce this volume (such as reimagining application pipelines, dramatically reducing marketing, etc) most employers will be turning to AI themselves to manage such extraordinary volumes. I expect the forthcoming 2025/26 season, starting in Autumn, to be the year when more employers are using AI for screening in their student and graduate recruitment than not.  

2. Professional services hiring reduces

There can't be a CEO or managing partner in the country running an accounting, consulting, or legal firm, bank or tech business who isn't looking at what work can and should now be completed by AI. While we know AI will not replace white collar jobs (indeed those with complex human, social, emotional or creative elements appear currently to be the least vulnerable), leaders are already reducing headcounts thanks to AI efficiencies and many anticipate further job cuts2 as AI improves in the coming years.

By Autumn 2025, employers will be hiring for their business needs in 2026/27 and beyond. They may not know exactly what that looks like, but I expect caution, so am reasonably confident it won't be the kind of volumes of professional services roles we have been used to.  

3. The market is stable overall but the private/public mix looks very different

With (at-best) sluggish economic performance3 in the U.K., impending large tax rises for employers, and Trumpian tariffs on the way, the private sector is likely to be reducing hiring numbers (as indicated in the hiring intentions of businesses from both the Chambers of Commerce4 and CBI5). Indeed, in some sectors I think we will see some very significant reductions.

It is also noteworthy that universities themselves have been significant employers of their own graduates. Given the financial constraints and job losses6 across the sector it is hard to see how this will continue to be the case in 2025.

So how will the market remain stable if I am predicting significant reductions? Well, there are some exceptions in the private sector - mainly in defence and utilities where global security concerns continue to drive government investments and demand, for engineers in particular, will continue to be high. But most significantly the new government is expected to invest in public sector student and graduate recruitment - particularly in areas like teaching, social care, prisons and immigration.

While I think this is only a short-term picture, it is one that will not doubt impact significantly on the nature and types of roles graduates of 2025 have available to them.   

4. EDI takes more of a back seat   

Having very much been a hot topic in the early careers sector for a number of years, I think EDI (equality, diversity and inclusion) may be about to take slightly more of a back seat. I don't like this prediction, but against the current political and economic backdrop7, with early careers teams facing escalating budget and resource pressures, alongside mass redundancies in 2023/24 for EDI professionals (particularly in tech8 and the start/scale up scene), I feel like I can see it coming.

I think it is highly unlikely this will affect the public sector in the same way and some organisations in the private sector will continue to be fully committed to EDI. However, when we look back at the end of 2025 I think we will see less spend, focus and time invested by employers in explicit EDI initiatives than in previous years.

5. Human-centred approaches will win

All of that said, I wanted to end on what I see as a real positive. I think 2025 will be the year where employers who take a human-centred approach to their early careers engagement will win. In person, on campus, adding value, connecting with real people is what is going to really stand out from the mass of chatbots, platforms and social noise that so many students feel exhausted and bewildered by. The employers who focus on human connection will 'win' with students, careers teams and critically with their business stakeholders. And I for one am all here for that.     

Of course, not all of my predictions will turn out to be correct, but I hope they are helpful and instructive to your own thinking as you plan for your year ahead.

Notes

1. ISE Recruitment Survey 2024.
2. What White-Collar Jobs Are Safe From AI - And Which Professions Are Most At Risk?, Forbes, 2024.
3. Business insights and impact on the UK economy: 19 December 2024, ONS.
4. Quarterly recruitment outlook: fewer firms recruiting, British Chambers of Commerce, 2024.
5. Private sector expects steep decline in activity into 2025, CBI, 2024.
6. University job cuts to ‘hit 10,000 by year end’ despite fee rise, Times Higher Education, 2024.
7. Will diversity and inclusion fall down business agendas in 2024?, people Management, 2024.
8. Tech companies like Google and Meta made cuts to DEI programs in 2023 after big promises in prior years, CNBC, 2023.

Written by

Rebecca Fielding

Founder and managing director

Gradconsult