The highest-paying UK graduate schemes open now, and what you take home
Updated 13 November 2026 from that day’s roles. First published 12 October 2026.
On 13 November 2026, only 108 of the 411 UK graduate schemes open for applications on The Intake (26%, about 1 in 4) state a salary in their own advert.
The highest stated salary is £120,000 to £140,000 a year, for Software Engineer, Agent (New Grad 2027) at Sierra; the lowest starts at £26,230 (Menzies, Graduate Programme 2027 - ACA Audit & Assurance). 11 of the 19 employers that state pay offer £35,000 or more, which leaves about £2,393 a month after income tax and National Insurance, £2,351 with a Plan 2 student loan, or £2,318 with Plan 5.
Every salary below is the employer’s own figure, from their advert or their job board. We never estimate pay. Schemes are ranked by the top of each published range, which not everyone on a scheme will reach. The 303 open schemes that state no salary are not ranked. They are all on the graduate schemes page.
Which UK graduate schemes pay the most?
Every open UK role for new graduates that states a salary. Most are cohort programmes, such as the banks’, the accountancy firms’ and the engineering firms’ graduate schemes; a few, mostly at smaller technology firms, are single graduate hires, and those can sit near the top.
Take-home is an estimate per month, before any pension contribution, after income tax and National Insurance for 2026/27 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and a student loan where shown. Where an employer publishes a range, both ends are shown. How it is worked out.
How many UK graduate schemes publish their salary?
Counted scheme by scheme (the last line counts employers), from every role open for applications on The Intake on 13 November 2026. A scheme counts as stating a salary when The Intake finds a pay figure in its advert or in its job board’s pay field; one that says only “competitive”, or nothing, does not.
- Graduate schemes: 108 of 411 (26%).
- By sector: Technology 74 of 185 (40%), Consulting 32 of 176 (18%), Finance 2 of 50 (4%).
- Trading firms and hedge funds: no salary The Intake could read in any of 70 open graduate schemes, internships and placements (0%). Which firms
- London and elsewhere: 7 of 114 in London (6%), against 101 of 297 everywhere else (34%).
- Internships and placements: 19 of 294 summer internships (6%), and 25 of 57 industrial placements (44%).
- All three together: 152 of 762 open graduate schemes, internships and placements (20%).
- Employers: 126 of the 153 employers with an open graduate scheme, internship or placement state no salary on any of them.
Why aren’t MHA, Morgan Stanley or Barclays on this list?
Because none of their open roles states a salary, and this page only ranks pay an employer has stated. These are the employers with the most open graduate schemes, internships and placements on 13 November 2026 that state no pay in any of them:
- MHA, 53 open roles
- RSM UK, 52 open roles
- PwC, 43 open roles
- Forvis Mazars, 30 open roles
- Morgan Stanley, 23 open roles
- Barclays, 19 open roles
- Goldman Sachs, 19 open roles
- Frazer Nash, 14 open roles
- BNY, 13 open roles
- Cambridge Consultants, 13 open roles
- Jefferies, 12 open roles
- M&G, 12 open roles
What do trading firms like Jane Street pay graduates?
On 13 November 2026, The Intake found no yearly salary in pounds in the adverts for any of the 70 open UK graduate schemes, internships and placements at the 22 trading firms and hedge funds with open UK roles on The Intake, so none of them is ranked on this page. Where an advert gives pay in another form, such as a weekly rate or a salary for a New York office, this page does not convert it, so check the firm’s own advert.
The firms, with their open UK graduate schemes, internships and placements (a firm’s own page can show more, counting other countries and types):
- Squarepoint Capital, 10 open roles
- Jump Trading, 8 open roles
- Qube Research and Technologies, 6 open roles
- G-Research, 5 open roles
- Marshall Wace, 5 open roles
- Millennium, 5 open roles
- Susquehanna International Group, 5 open roles
- DRW, 3 open roles
- DV Trading, 3 open roles
- Hudson River Trading, 3 open roles
- Capula Investment Management, 2 open roles
- Five Rings, 2 open roles
- Jane Street, 2 open roles
- Tower Research Capital, 2 open roles
- Xantium, 2 open roles
- Aquatic Capital Management, 1 open role
- Brevan Howard, 1 open role
- D. E. Shaw, 1 open role
- Maven Securities, 1 open role
- Point72, 1 open role
- Virtu Financial, 1 open role
- Winton, 1 open role
Which internships and placements pay the most?
43 of the 351 open UK summer internships and industrial placements state their pay in pounds a year, shown as the employer published it (for an internship, the yearly rate for the weeks you work). There is no take-home column: you are still a student, student loan repayments start the April after you leave your course, and the tax on a few months’ pay depends on what else you earn that year.
How much is a graduate salary after tax and student loan?
Every take-home figure on this page is worked out the same way, from the employer’s stated salary and the official 2026/27 rates:
- Income tax, 2026/27: nothing on the first £12,570, then 20% up to £50,270, 40% up to £125,140 and 45% above that, in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The tax-free £12,570 shrinks by £1 for every £2 earned over £100,000. gov.uk: Income Tax rates
- National Insurance: 8% of pay between £12,570 and £50,270 a year, and 2% above that. gov.uk: rates and thresholds for 2026/27
- Student loan: 9% of pay above £29,385 a year on Plan 2, or above £25,000 on Plan 5. Plan 4 (students from Scotland) starts above £33,795 and Plan 1 (Northern Ireland, and English or Welsh courses that began before September 2012) above £26,900. gov.uk: what you pay
- Which plan you are on: in England, Plan 2 if your course started between 1 September 2012 and 31 July 2023, and Plan 5 if it started on or after 1 August 2023. Students from Wales are on Plan 2. gov.uk: which repayment plan you are on
- Scotland: income tax has six bands there, so a Scottish taxpayer on £35,000 takes home about £1 a month less than the figure shown. National Insurance and student loans are the same across the UK. mygov.scot: Scottish Income Tax
- Not included: pension contributions, which most employers take automatically and rarely publish, so your payslip will show less than these figures once you are enrolled. Bonuses, sign-on payments, allowances and the Postgraduate Loan are left out too.
- A year at a time: tax, National Insurance and loan repayments come off each payday, but on a salary paid evenly through the tax year they add up to the same total, so the yearly figure is divided by twelve.
How we know this
- Salaries come from each employer’s own advert or job board, read when The Intake checks every board, twice a day. A figure appears only when the employer published it, and each row’s Apply button opens that employer’s own advert, so every figure can be checked at its source.
- “Graduate scheme” means every open role for new graduates on The Intake. Most are cohort programmes; a few are single graduate hires at smaller firms.
- On 13 November 2026, 108 of 411 open graduate schemes (26%) state a salary, and 108 of them in pounds a year, which is what the table ranks. 1 open role publishes pay in another currency or not as a yearly salary, so it is left out of this page.
- Pay is read from the advert when it is a yearly figure in pounds, and from the job board’s own pay field in any currency. Pay given another way, such as a weekly rate or a salary for an office abroad, is not counted, so the shares on this page may be a little lower than the true ones.
- Tax, National Insurance and student loan rules are the 2026/27 rates from gov.uk and mygov.scot, for the tax year running to 5 April 2027, checked against those pages on 7 October 2026.
- UK roles only. The Intake also tracks 18 open graduate schemes and 30 open internships and placements in Ireland, left out of every figure here because Irish pay is taxed differently.
- The share of schemes on The Intake that state a salary has risen since August, mostly because we read more employers’ boards and read pay from adverts more reliably. It is not a measure of employers changing, so we do not present it as a trend.
- This page is rebuilt each time The Intake checks every board, twice a day. Last updated 13 November 2026.
- Quoting these figures? Please name The Intake, link to this page and give the date: the numbers change every day.