Time to ditch the degree? Why employers are no longer asking for a 2:1

Grad­u­at­ing with a good degree was once con­sid­ered key to secur­ing a decent job after uni­ver­si­ty. But recruiters are increas­ing­ly less con­cerned with the clas­si­fi­ca­tion on degree cer­tifi­cates. 

Accord­ing to research from the Insti­tute of Stu­dent Employ­ers (ISE), the pro­por­tion of com­pa­nies requir­ing at least a 2:1 qual­i­fi­ca­tion from grad­u­ates fell below 50% for the first time last year. Mean­while, the num­ber of firms that don’t have a min­i­mum require­ment is slow­ly ris­ing.

Of the recruiters ranked in the 2022–23 edi­tion of The Times Top 100 Grad­u­ate Employ­ers, 31 require appli­cants to have achieved at least a 2:1 degree, while 43 either have no min­i­mum grade or don’t spec­i­fy one.

San­tander is the lat­est major recruiter to join the trend, announc­ing at the start of this year that it would no longer require uni­ver­si­ty grad­u­ates to hold a 2:1 degree or high­er. The bank says this will help it to expand its tal­ent pool and open up oppor­tu­ni­ties to peo­ple with a “wide range of back­grounds, skills and expe­ri­ences”.

Why are companies removing 2:1 requirements?

Sev­er­al fac­tors have influ­enced this change. As com­pa­nies find it increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to attract tal­ent with­in a com­pet­i­tive labour mar­ket, accept­ing appli­ca­tions from a wider group of grad­u­ate can­di­dates is seen as a way to help fill vacan­cies.

Some 74,895 stu­dents grad­u­at­ed with low­er sec­ond-class hon­ours, third-class hon­ours or a pass in 2021, accord­ing to the High­er Edu­ca­tion Sta­tis­tics Agency, which rep­re­sents 17.5% of that year’s UK grad­u­ates.

Stephen Ish­er­wood is joint CEO of the ISE and the for­mer head of grad­u­ate recruit­ment at EY. “The tight labour mar­ket means employ­ers gen­er­al­ly have a short­age of employ­ees and skills, so they’re more like­ly to look to build a longer tal­ent pipeline,” he says.

This has been reflect­ed in grad­u­ate pay, which was up 7% on aver­age last year, as com­pe­ti­tion for tal­ent increased across all areas of the jobs mar­ket.

There is also pres­sure on com­pa­nies to diver­si­fy their work­force. San­tander – which cur­rent­ly ranks 40th on the Social Mobil­i­ty Foun­da­tion Employ­er Index – has pledged to increase the pro­por­tion of employ­ees from low­er socioe­co­nom­ic back­grounds in senior roles from 28% to 35% by 2030.

Anous­ka Ram­say, San­tander UK’s HR direc­tor, claims that “by hav­ing access to a wider tal­ent pool we can rein­force our com­mit­ment to find­ing the best can­di­dates from a range of back­grounds, skills and expe­ri­ences”.

Sim­i­lar­ly, PwC said that remov­ing its 2:1 require­ment would allow the pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices firm to “make real progress in dri­ving social mobil­i­ty” among its recruits, after mak­ing the change last year.

Data from the Office for Stu­dents shows that 74.2% of stu­dents from the most deprived groups achieved a first or upper-sec­ond degree in 2019/20. In com­par­i­son, 89.4% of stu­dents from the least deprived areas of the coun­try were award­ed one of the top two degree clas­si­fi­ca­tions. By remov­ing the need for a 2:1, employ­ers hope they can make their grad­u­ate pro­grammes more acces­si­ble to all, no mat­ter their social or eco­nom­ic cir­cum­stances.

Grant Thorn­ton was the first large pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices firm to remove any strict aca­d­e­m­ic require­ment from its grad­u­ate job list­ings, in 2013. Its peo­ple and cul­ture direc­tor, Richard Waite, says that the change has allowed the busi­ness “to tap into a broad­er tal­ent pool” and “unlock poten­tial in can­di­dates” that pre­vi­ous­ly would have been screened out at the first stage of hir­ing. 

“The removal of aca­d­e­m­ic bar­ri­ers to entry has allowed us to have a much wider reach and a more diverse intake each year,” he adds. 

The pan­dem­ic has influ­enced this change too. Ram­say rais­es the point that stu­dents have faced a “vast range of dif­fi­cul­ties” since the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic and acknowl­edges the “phys­i­cal or men­tal health con­cerns” that may have impact­ed their stud­ies. 

San­tander hopes that by remov­ing its degree require­ments, stu­dents whose final grades were affect­ed by pan­dem­ic-relat­ed dis­rup­tions will still be able to apply for its 68 grad­u­ate posi­tions.

Are employers downgrading?

Kubrick is one of the decreas­ing num­ber of com­pa­nies list­ed in The Times Top 100 Grad­u­ate Employ­ers that still stip­u­lates a 2:1 min­i­mum. Co-founder and chief com­mer­cial offi­cer Simon Walk­er states that this is because its place­ment pro­gramme “relies on hires that are high qual­i­ty”. But he adds that the busi­ness is review­ing its degree require­ments “to bet­ter enable peo­ple from all socioe­co­nom­ic back­grounds to work with us, while main­tain­ing high lev­els of com­pe­ten­cies in our work­force”.

Some have claimed that over­look­ing aca­d­e­m­ic attain­ment amounts to lit­tle more than a dumb­ing down of recruit­ment, with The Tele­graph colum­nist Matthew Lynn jok­ing that you will soon “be able to apply to Gold­man Sachs with some nice pota­to paint­ing”.

But any fears that these changes will dis­in­cen­tivise stu­dents from aim­ing for top marks can swift­ly be put to rest, Ish­er­wood says. “An indi­vid­u­al’s moti­va­tion to do well tends to over­ride any mes­sages from the job mar­ket,” he adds. “Even though employ­ers aren’t using grades as a cut-off point, if you have good aca­d­e­m­ic cre­den­tials and a well-round­ed CV, you will be putting your­self in the best light in a com­pet­i­tive mar­ket.”

Ish­er­wood com­pares it to the trend of employ­ers no longer as con­cerned with Ucas points as they were. He says: “These sorts of require­ments used to be a short­hand way of reduc­ing the num­ber of appli­ca­tions when busi­ness­es didn’t have any oth­er tools at their dis­pos­al.” Now, com­pa­nies are more like­ly to use online apti­tude tests or prac­ti­cal tasks, which many employ­ers con­sid­er a much bet­ter pre­dic­tor of suit­abil­i­ty for a role.

Grant Thorn­ton is one of the employ­ers that has found that top marks don’t always trans­late into suc­cess in the work­place. Waite says: “With aca­d­e­m­ic pro­file no longer a cri­te­ri­on for selec­tion, we are being more par­tic­u­lar dur­ing the process with a greater focus on per­for­mance against the strengths and com­pe­ten­cies and are there­fore hir­ing a more round­ed cohort of can­di­dates who can thrive in the role.”

Sim­i­lar­ly, Gold­man Sachs, which has nev­er stip­u­lat­ed min­i­mum grades for its grad­u­ate posi­tions, sees for­mal require­ments as lit­tle more than a bar­ri­er to access­ing the best tal­ent. Its head of recruit­ing for EMEA, Janine Glasen­berg, says: “As we recruit stu­dents from all over the world, we pride our­selves on not hav­ing a for­mu­la­ic approach. We recog­nise that a range of fac­tors may influ­ence one’s edu­ca­tion­al out­come.”

Instead, the invest­ment bank takes into account extracur­ric­u­lar activ­i­ties, hob­bies, lan­guages spo­ken, trans­fer­able skills and any form of work expe­ri­ence when review­ing a can­di­date’s appli­ca­tion. Last year, 236,000 peo­ple applied for its 3,000 grad­u­ate places.

It may be that the move away from strict 2:1 require­ments could pro­vide pos­i­tive results for both stu­dents and employ­ers.

Graduating with a good degree was once considered key to securing a decent job after university. But recruiters are increasingly less concerned with the classification on degree certificates. 

According to research from the Institute of Student Employers (ISE), the proportion of companies requiring at least a 2:1 qualification from graduates fell below 50% for the first time last year. Meanwhile, the number of firms that don't have a minimum requirement is slowly rising.

Of the recruiters ranked in the 2022-23 edition of The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers, 31 require applicants to have achieved at least a 2:1 degree, while 43 either have no minimum grade or don’t specify one.