The Best UK Cities for Graduate Jobs Outside London: Pay, Rent and Key Sectors Compared

London has more graduate jobs than any other UK city, but it is far from the only place to start a career. Several regional cities have large graduate markets, major employers and rents that leave you with much more of your salary each month.

This guide compares eleven cities on official pay and rent data, explains what each is known for, and shows how to search for roles by location. For the wider job search, start with our complete guide to graduate jobs in the UK. If London is still on your list, read our guide to graduate jobs in London alongside this one.

Why look for graduate jobs outside London?

Because the gap in rent between London and other cities is much bigger than the gap in pay, and many large employers have major bases outside the capital.

The numbers make the point. ONS data puts average private rent in London at £2,332 a month in August 2026, against £1,400 for the UK as a whole. Median full-time pay for people working in London was £49,692 in April 2025, against £40,479 in Manchester and £39,039 across the UK, according to the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings. Manchester's median pay is about 19% lower than London's, but its average rent is about 41% lower.

Employers have followed. TheCityUK reports that around two thirds of the almost 2.5 million jobs in financial and related professional services are outside London, with Birmingham, Edinburgh and Manchester each employing around 60,000 people in the sector. Media, engineering, life sciences, tech and the public sector all have large regional hubs too.

How do UK cities compare for graduates on pay and rent?

Leeds, Glasgow, Nottingham and Birmingham offer the lowest rents relative to local pay. Cambridge, Edinburgh, Oxford and Bristol have the highest pay outside London, but Bristol, Oxford and Cambridge also have the highest rents.

There is no reliable official figure for graduate starting salaries by city, so the table uses ONS median full-time pay for all employees who work in each city. Graduates will usually start below this, but it is a fair guide to how local pay compares. Rents come from the ONS Price Index of Private Rents for August 2026.

How to read it: the last column is a year of average one-bed rent divided by median full-time pay before tax. It is a rough comparison, not a budget, and most graduates share a house, which costs less than a one-bed flat. Pay is by local authority of work, so it can include commuters who live elsewhere.

Two notes on Scotland. The ONS reports Scottish rents by rental area, so the Edinburgh figures are for Lothian and the Glasgow figures for Greater Glasgow. The ONS also cautions that Scottish rent data are mainly for advertised new lets, so they are not perfectly comparable with England and Wales.

Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle: the North's biggest graduate markets

These three cities combine big graduate employers with rents well below London, and all three have large universities feeding local talent networks.

Manchester

Manchester has the strongest pay of the northern cities, with median full-time pay of £40,479, above the UK median. It is one of the three cities TheCityUK names as employing around 60,000 people in financial and professional services. Across the river in Salford, MediaCityUK has been home to the BBC since 2011, with around 3,200 BBC staff in twenty-six departments including BBC Sport and BBC Breakfast. The trade-off is cost: Manchester's average rent of £1,373 is the highest of the northern cities here, and rose 4.2% in the year to August 2026. Neighbouring Salford averages £1,170.

Leeds

Leeds has one of the best ratios of rent to pay in this comparison: an average one-bed costs £782 a month against median full-time pay of £37,821. TheCityUK lists Leeds alongside Birmingham, Edinburgh and Manchester as a city where much of the UK's financial and professional services employment is based, and Channel 4 chose Leeds for its National HQ in 2018.

Newcastle

Newcastle's rents are still moderate at £1,215 on average, but they rose 9.3% in the year to August 2026, the fastest increase of any city in this guide. Median full-time pay is £36,726. Software company Sage has its registered office at Cobalt Park, on Newcastle's doorstep in North Tyneside, and the city's two universities and hospitals are major employers in their own right.

Birmingham and Nottingham: the Midlands

The Midlands offers some of the lowest living costs of any major graduate market, with good rail links to London and the North.

Birmingham

Birmingham is a major centre for banking and professional services. HSBC UK is headquartered in Birmingham, and TheCityUK counts around 60,000 financial and professional services jobs in the city. Average rent is £1,099 and a one-bed £830, against median full-time pay of £38,556, so your salary goes noticeably further than in Manchester or Bristol.

Nottingham

Nottingham has the lowest rents in this comparison, at £1,014 on average and £735 for a one-bed, though also the lowest median pay at £34,868. Boots runs its UK Support Office from a 279-acre site in Beeston, on the edge of the city. For graduates in retail, health, finance and operations, Nottingham can be one of the most affordable places to start.

Bristol and Cardiff: the South West and Wales

Bristol pays well but has become expensive; Cardiff, about an hour away by train, is noticeably cheaper.

Bristol

Bristol has median full-time pay of £42,160, above the UK median, but average rent of £1,883, the highest of any city outside London in this guide except Oxford, and up 5.9% in a year. The ONS named Bristol among the least affordable places to rent outside London in 2024. Aerospace is a major draw: Airbus's Filton site on the city's northern edge leads in wing design and support, fuel and landing gear systems. Bristol is also one of Channel 4's two Creative Hubs.

Cardiff

Cardiff combines a capital city's public sector with a large insurance and financial services base. Admiral has its HQ, Tŷ Admiral, in the centre of Cardiff. Average rent is £1,177 and a one-bed £908, with median full-time pay of £38,225, so it costs far less to live in than Bristol.

Edinburgh and Glasgow: Scotland's two graduate hubs

Scotland's two biggest cities are less than an hour apart by train and between them cover finance, tech, government, engineering and the creative industries.

Edinburgh

Edinburgh has median full-time pay of £43,715, second only to Cambridge among the cities outside London in this comparison. It is one of the three cities where TheCityUK counts around 60,000 financial and professional services jobs, and it is home to the Scottish Government. Rents in the Lothian area average £1,415, and £1,035 for a one-bed.

Glasgow

Glasgow has median full-time pay of £40,554 and one of the best rent-to-pay ratios here, with Greater Glasgow one-beds averaging £843. Barclays opened its flagship Glasgow campus on the banks of the Clyde in 2022, and Glasgow is Channel 4's other Creative Hub.

One thing to factor in for both cities: if you live in Scotland, you pay Scottish Income Tax, which has different bands from the rest of the UK. For 2026/27 there is a 19% starter rate on the first slice of taxable income, but a 21% intermediate rate on income between £29,527 and £43,662, where England, Wales and Northern Ireland charge 20%. On these rates, someone earning under about £33,500 pays slightly less Income Tax in Scotland, and someone earning more pays slightly more, so the difference on a typical graduate salary is small.

Cambridge and Oxford: high pay, high rents

Cambridge and Oxford have the highest pay outside London, driven by research, life sciences and technology, but rents to match.

Cambridge

Cambridge has median full-time pay of £45,762, the highest of any city in this guide. AstraZeneca has its global corporate headquarters and flagship R&D facility on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, where more than 2,000 researchers work, and the city has a dense cluster of tech and life sciences firms. Average rent is £1,805, and £1,256 for a one-bed.

Oxford

Oxford had the highest average rent of any local authority outside London in August 2026, at £1,963. Median full-time pay is £43,502. If your field is research, life sciences or higher education, Oxford is hard to beat, but budget carefully and consider living in a nearby town with good transport links.

Which city should you choose for your first graduate job?

Choose by sector first and cost second. The best city is the one where your target employers are, and where your salary leaves you enough to live on and save a little.

A quick checklist:

1. Where does your sector cluster? Search live roles by location and see where most of them are.
2. What will you keep each month? Take-home pay minus rent for a room or flat, minus travel. Use the table above as a starting point.
3. How easy is it to get home? Rail links matter if you will visit family regularly.
4. Is the role hybrid? Some graduates live in a cheaper city and travel to an office two or three days a week. Check the office-day policy before you sign a tenancy.
5. Can you stay where you studied? Your university city may already give you a network, friends to share with and a careers service you know.

For salary benchmarks by sector and subject, see our UK Graduate Salary Report 2026.

How do you search for graduate jobs by location on GradWorx Search?

GradWorx Search lets you filter by location, job type and sector, so you can compare cities in a few minutes. It is free and you do not need to register to browse.

1. Open GradWorx Search. It lists hundreds of live graduate roles, summer internships, work placements and apprenticeships across the UK.
2. Use the location filter to pick the city you are considering.
3. Add a job type filter, or start from a category page such as graduate roles or work placements.
4. Add a sector filter to see how many roles in your field are live in that city.
5. Repeat for your other shortlisted cities and compare. For the capital, the London page collects every London role in one place.

If you would rather be matched than search, GradWorx Discover in the free GradWorx app builds your profile with Grace, GradWorx's AI, starting from your CV, then matches you to roles with a Match Score and the reasons behind it. Employers can message you directly. Before you apply anywhere, run your CV through the free AI CV review.