Today saw the release by AGR’s winter survey – the forecast for graduate jobs in 2012 according to 214 big name recruiters. The main points were salaries are up from £25k to £26k (the first time since 2008) although vacancies are down by 1.2{6060b2de664e4eaa3e7b7e86961ce2c4bbd7a29b6c1097abf8257a4e5b07383e}. You may recall another survey that came out a few weeks ago representing the Times 100 graduate recruiters (a slightly smaller cohort but still important) that predicted a RISE of 6.4{6060b2de664e4eaa3e7b7e86961ce2c4bbd7a29b6c1097abf8257a4e5b07383e} – so what’s going on?

Well forecasts are just that, forecasts, so we shouldn’t read too much into it but it does gives us a sense of recruiter confidence levels which when things are bumping along in the economy we should welcome. I’ll tell you what’s happening right now in our experience and that is 2011 was better than 2010. That’s a fact. Over 200 clients used GRB to find graduates for their schemes, direct entry roles and many other graduate jobs that go unadvertised. So, what’s our forecast for 2012? As long as recruiters remain confident about their business (like many in IT, Utilities or FMCG do) and continue to see the value of hiring exceptional talent to fuel their growth (which GRB shout about as much as possible) then things are still very much “open for business”.