With big accountancy and finance firms turning to tech rather than graduates, even those with ‘useful’ degrees find their prospects diminished
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Connor Myers is a student at the University of Exeter and an intern on the Guardian’s positive action scheme
September is the beginning of many young people’s lives, as cars speed along motorways transporting 18- and 19-year-olds to their new university accommodations. I remember my own journey down to Exeter in 2022, the first stage in what I hoped would be an experience to set me up for the rest of my life. Little did I know that this was the calm before the storm, before anyone had heard of ChatGPT, or imagined the chaos that generative AI was about to cause for new graduates.
Fast forward to 2025, and some of the young people I began this journey with have realised that they’ve spent the last three years training for graduate jobs that don’t exist. Many firms are now slashing their number of new hires. Big accountancy firms have cut back on graduate recruitment; Deloitte reduced its scheme by 18%, while EY has cut the number of graduates it’s recruiting by 11%. According to data collected by the job search site Adzuna, entry-level job opportunities in finance have dropped by 50.8%, and those for IT services have seen a decrease of 54.8%.
Connor Myers is a student at the University of Exeter and an intern on the Guardian’s positive action scheme
