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Oxford business graduates are UK’s highest earners, report reveals

Historians, philosophers, and engineers earn less according to new government report

Oxford business graduates are the most financially successful a year after their graduation, figures released by the Department for Education have shown.

Oxford degrees in the category ‘Business and Administrative Studies’ topped the list of graduate incomes, with the average salary of Oxford Business graduates being £41,500 one year after graduation, according to figures based on the 2012/13 group of graduates.

Business graduates also topped the list three years after graduation, averaging £50,900 per annum, and five years after, gaining £71,700 a year.

The starting salaries place the graduates in the top 20 per cent of earners in Britain, only a year into their professional lives.

Oxford beat Cambridge University’s Business graduates (£32,200) and Bath’s (£29,400) in the recently released survey.

The results were less good news for other Oxford students however. Those doing Historical or Philosophical studies came in third nationally, with average salaries of £22,200 one year after graduation. This was behind the LSE and Birkbeck College in London.

Similarly, those doing courses in Engineering were placed fifth but were more fortunate than the Oxford historians and philosophers. Their average starting salary was £30,300 per annum.

The Open University came in second overall, in the rankings, with their economics degree averaging a starting salary of £39,600.

The figures also showed the gender imbalance in starting salaries. The average male salary after one year for English graduates was £22,200. Whilst for female graduates, the figure was lower with £17, 400.

However, among law graduates, female students had an average salary of £29,000 compared to the male average of £23,900.

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