We contacted undergraduate students from the targetjobs.co.uk database who had told us that they were interested in working in the IT sector. 720 completed the survey, which was live on the site for a three-week period in April/May 2012. These are the findings from the survey.

1. TARGETjobs IT
Student Survey
2012
Copyright GTI Media 2012
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2. Main findings
• The majority of students decided on an IT career before starting university.
• When choosing an employer, the type of job role offered is the most important
factor, but many don’t yet know what their desired job role will be.
• Starting salary isn’t the most important factor for most students in choosing an
employer, and their expectations of what they will earn are realistic.
• Most students have only considered applying for jobs with IT or finance
employers.
• The most popular sources of information for deciding between employers are
employers’ websites and careers media such as TARGETjobs.
• Most students have limited their applications for jobs or internships to a
sensible number.
• Students know how important work experience is, but don’t feel there is
enough being offered.
• Only 29 per cent of students report that their degree course has taught them
the technical skills they need to get the job they want.
Facts and figures
• We contacted undergraduate students from the targetjobs.co.uk database who
had told us that they were interested in working in the IT sector. 720
completed the survey, which was live on the site for a three-week period in
April/May 2012.
• There was a wide variety of universities represented in the sample,
with the following producing the most responses: Bath, Bristol, Cambridge,
Durham, Edinburgh, Imperial College, Manchester, Oxford and Warwick.
• 38 per cent of respondents were studying computer science or closely related
subjects while 15 per cent were studying unrelated subjects. The remainder
were doing science and engineering degrees.
• 28 per cent of respondents were final year undergraduates and around 15 per
cent were first years.
Career choice
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4. The majority (61 per cent) had decided on an IT career before starting university
but 21 per cent of a student sample interested in working in the sector were not
sure if that’s where they would end up. These are the students that employers in
the sector need to persuade to stay in IT.
The two most important factors when choosing an employer were the job role
itself (clear leader) and the training and development on offer. Location was not
considered a key factor.
Significantly, when asked about their preferred job role, nearly a third said
they had not decided yet.
Nearly half saw themselves working for a IT or technology company although
a significant number were considering technical careers in finance firms.
Employers
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5. The two places that students went first for information about IT employers were
employers’ own websites and specialist sites and publications such as
TARGETjobs IT. The campus careers service and careers fairs were the next most
popular sources.
Respondents had a reasonable grasp of likely starting salaries with 37 per cent
expecting to be paid £21k–£25k. A significant minority expected that they would
be paid less than £20k on graduation.
Interestingly, over 80 per cent thought that they would be moving employers
in the first four years.
Jobs and internships
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7. We asked final year students how many jobs they had applied for. 21 per cent
hadn’t applied for any but the majority had applied for 1–15. 12 per cent had
applied for more than 25.
We asked penultimate years the same question about internships, with over a
third saying that they hadn’t applied for any.
But they did overwhelmingly feel that internships were either ‘very important’
or ‘critically important’ in increasingly employability. Only 5 per cent believed
them to be unimportant.
Many were not confident at all of securing a job or internship in 2012. These
were some of the reasons they gave (in their own words):
• The competition for jobs is very tough and there are not that many
opportunities.
• Level of competition, lack of understanding as to what graduate employers
want.
• As a first year student it is difficult to get a summer placement as most
employers are looking for second years.
• I am an international student. Employers want to hire candidates with work
permits.
Skills for work
Students studying technical disciplines were asked whether their degree had
taught them the technical skills needed to get the job they wanted. Only 10 per
cent said no.
Issues, concerns and questions about a career in IT
Finally we asked respondents if they wanted to share any issues and concerns.
This is a selection of responses with only small edits for language and grammar.
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8. Many responses concerned work experience/internships, the recruitment process
and equal opportunities.
Work experience/internships
• I think there should be more summer internships as this is what helped me to
decide on my career path.
• Consider a few internship programmes for lower-year students.
• How do you treat applicants who have little/no work experience, but have
done projects on their own time? Eg making a mobile app, contributing to
open source projects, etc?
• Why do employers look for experience knowing graduates have little
experience in the working environment?
• Very often graduates face a problem of not having enough experience which is
expected by almost every employer today. But these employers need to realise
that only way possible to get experience is to be given a chance. Without a
chance or opportunity it is not possible to for fresh graduates to have the
experience they are looking for.
• The fact that, if a student does not any real working experience there should
be at least an option to work unpaid for a period of time, if willing to.
• The increasing need for experience for first jobs! Some people don’t get the
right internship or may not have the right grade but still make a invaluable
member of a team, more should be done to help undergraduates into their
field.
The recruitment process
• Provide more descriptive information about job roles.
• State clearly which programming languages they'd prefer.
• Be more open with visa requirements.
• They should process applications quicker. I have several times been left to wait
for a very long time for them to come back to me.
• They should all consider students who have little or no IT experience and be
disposed to employ them.
• I wish the employers would also register with the careers service at the
University and inform when there is a requirement.
• For software development roles, I have been told many times that companies
seek mathematicians to be programmers. However, the fact that I study Maths,
and not computer science, is severely hindering my chances of getting an
internship in this sector. Why is this?
• How many graduates that they are taking every year should be mentioned in
the job adverts so that the applicants can decide to apply for it or not.
• I strongly feel that companies should always advertise placements through
Universities, as students like myself find it hard to keep up to date with finding
placements that are not listed.
• The earlier the recruitment process can start, and the quicker they are at
progressing candidates through the recruitment process, the easier they will
find it to get top class candidates. No recruitment process should take more
than 2 months from start to finish.
• When being interviewed for Easter technology internships at banks, all the
questions I was asked were related to investment banking and nothing to do
with technology or my degree course. I thought this was unfair and a bit
irrelevant as most companies say you will learn all relevant extra information
on the job.
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9. Equal opportunities
• IT seems intimidatingly male-dominated. Events specifically for women or
simply more women featured in careers literature would be encouraging.
• Little scope for mature students who are retraining.
• Expectations that new graduates are geographically flexible and able to work
away from home for extended periods. This discriminates against mature
students.
• Be more lenient with requirements for jobs as new faces and a wide range of
people can benefit companies positively.
• Why do employers have a biased outlook towards international students?? For
a graduate role, they are not taking a candidate who has a work experience of
2 yrs with an MNC, has a masters, a bachelors in IT, with hons. They recruit
someone who is British, and has done a Bachelors in Arts or geography.
The content of this report is the property of GTI Media, so please ask permission if you want
to use any part of it (usually freely given) and always credit the source as the TARGETjobs IT
Student Survey 2012.
Please feel free to contact us with any observations or suggestions for next year’s
survey.
Chris Phillips, Publishing Director, GTI Media
chris.phillips@targetjobs.co.uk
targetjobsIT.co.uk
Kirsty Drummond, IT Account Manager
kirsty.drummond@targetjobs.co.uk
targetjobsIT.co.uk
Liz Adams, TARGETjobs IT Editor
01491 828939
targetjobsIT.co.uk
June 2012
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