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Graduate job prospects are to rise significantly in 2010 according to new research released by the graduate recruitment research analyst High Fliers.

Following two years of gloomy news in the graduate job market - when opportunities dropped by 6.7% in 2008 and 17.8% last year - a study of 100 of the top employers in the UK has revealed that those companies have boosted their recruitment drive to fill graduate jobs by 11.8 percent. That amounts to an increase of around 1,600 graduate positions over the course of the year.

Just short of half of the companies canvassed expected to take on more graduates this year than they did in 2009. This covers 10 out of 14 key industry and employment sectors. The City’s major investment banks are the leaders in the turn around and are expecting to recruit a third more graduates than they did last year. Also expecting to recruit more graduates this year are retailers and the accountancy and professional services sectors. The largest provider of graduate jobs for 2010 will be PwC with over a thousand vacancies, closely followed by Deliotte.

Only three of the 14 sectors explored by the survey anticipated that they would recruit less graduates this year; engineering & industry, the public sector and consumer goods companies.

Martin Birchall, the managing director of High Fliers Research said: “After two years of swingeing cuts in graduate recruitment, it’s very encouraging that Britain’s
best-known and most sought-after employers are stepping up their entry-level vacancies for 2010.”

The study did, however, also point out that competition for the graduate jobs will be very high as three-quarters of the employers have had more applications than at this stage last year. A quarter of the vacancies for 2010 have already been filled by students who graduated last year.

This all highlights the importance of getting ahead of the game by starting the application process as soon as possible. Start your graduate job search now and get ahead of your peers by researching the latest graduate opportunities in the e4s database.