An annual graduate survey named dentistry as the most lucrative degree subject, with graduates earning an average salary of £42,000.
The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) survey approaches all recipients of UK higher education qualifications 15 months after graduation. The most recent data released in 2024 relates to the 2021/22 cohort. Among the survey questions is a discussion of the graduates’ employment status and salary.
The average salary for dentistry graduates was £7,000 higher than the next most lucrative subjects, at £42,000. Medicine, pharmacology and pharmacy, and veterinary medicine shared the second place spot, with an average salary of £35,000.
The subjects which were in the top 10 for graduate salary were as follows:
| Ranking | Subject | Salary |
| 1 | Dentistry | £42,000 |
| 2 | Medicine Pharmacology and pharmacy Veterinary medicine | £35,000 |
| 3 | Economics Electrical and electronic engineering General engineering Materials technology Social work | £32,000 |
| 4 | Aeronautical and manufacturing engineering Mathematics Mechanical engineering | £31,000 |
| 5 | Physics and astronomy | £30,500 |
| 6 | Natural sciences | £30,279 |
| 7 | Bioengineering and biomedical engineering Building Civil engineering Computing science Russian | £30,000 |
| 8 | Information systems and management | £28,980 |
| 9 | Chemistry Education German Liberal arts Middle Eastern and African studies Physiotherapy Politics Radiography Subjects allied to medicine Town and country planning and landscape | £28,000 |
| 10 | Iberian languages Nursing | £27,500 |
In total, 16% of medicine and dentistry graduates earned a salary between £33,000 and £35,999. A further 13% earned between £36,000 and £38,999, with only 5% earning less than £27,000. The largest group of graduates in this subject category (17%) were earning more than £51,000.
Medicine and dentistry therefore had the highest percentage of graduates in the top salary group. The subject area with the lowest percentage of graduates earning more than £51,000 was media, journalism and communications, at 1%.
Types of graduate employment
Some 97% of dentistry and medicine graduates were found to be in high skilled employment. This is compared to figures such as 51% for agriculture and food, and 68% for psychology.
Almost seven in 10 (69%) of medical and dental graduates were in full time work at the time of the survey. A further 19% were in further study and 7% were in part time employment. Just 2% considered themselves to be unemployed, though 3% were occupied with non-work activities such as travel or caring. The subject area with the highest unemployment percentage was computing, at 8%.
Of the UK universities which offer dentistry courses, University College London (UCL) had the highest number of dental and medical graduates in full time work. This was followed by Queen Mary University of London, King’s College London and the University of Manchester.
Out of more than 380,000 graduates who responded to the survey overall, around 60% were in full time work while 5% were unemployed. Therefore, medicine and dentistry graduates had both a higher level of full time employment and a lower level of unemployment compared to the national average.
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