Truth about the UK job market
I’m a recent highschool graduate going to uni this year and had the ib plan in mind (i know i might be delusional here) but i keep hearing how shit the job market in the uk is especially for internationals and i want to know how much truth there is to that, and would it be any better in the US, singapore, hongkong etc
why do you say delusional. IB isn't anything special that you need to be a super genius for.
Job market is not great generally, but banks are still hiring.
I would much rather get into a place like NUS or NTU and then make moves from there. They are absolutely fantastic schools, and in certain tracks like CS, I'd say they're better than Oxford or Cambridge. In fact, there was this top AI conference held yearly, and folks from NUS or NTU made more publications than from Oxbridge combined - it's shocking how smart they are (source). I'm sure the same holds true for other departments.
The UK job market is crap, and internationals are hard to hire because of sponsorship. Consider the fact that EU students are now also fighting for sponsorship. I would say stay in SG and move laterally if you want the coveted 'Western' work experience. This is a pretty good post that puts things into perspective, how even going to Cambridge isn't some IB guarantee
That's a crazy take. If you think UK job market is crap, SG job market is even worse and it's not even a comparison. It's even common knowledge to stay outside of SG if you carve out a career in Tech/Finance. The market is inherently way smaller and way less opportunities, not to mention most firms are going under restructuring and cutting costs therefore hiring freeze. Just look up the unemployment rate coming from NUS/NTU/SMU grads lol.
Even if the market is not in down time, recruiting in SG is SIGNIFICANTLY HARDER than UK. To put into perspective, let's say you want to recruit for IB, most BBs only have 5-6 openings per year and most kids who do business/finance at these top 3 unis all want to compete for the same roles. Because of this, almost everyone I know started stacking their resume from first year - taking gap semesters, interning part-time during term, or doing off-cycle internships just to stay competitive. SAs are typically reserved for third year students, so by the time recruiting comes around, resume are already extremely stacked. It’s very common for candidates to have at least one well-known name on their CV, with Big 4 M&A being more or less the baseline rather than a differentiator. What makes it even worse is that SAs don’t guarantee a return offer at all, their offer rates often sit around 40 - 50%, and that’s out of an intake of only 5 to 6 interns per year to begin with. On top of that, firms almost never hire Graduate Analysts in Singapore. Even if they haven't filled up the analyst class, they rarely recruit any more graduate analysts and many job postings exist largely for formality, unless you’re exceptionally lucky.
Also, job security tends to be better in the UK. Whenever MNCs need to cut people, SG is ALWAYS hit first because their labour protection laws are pretty much non-existent, while UK counterparts are almost never affected even though it's the UK that caused all the problems in the first place.
Internal mobility tends to be lip service in SG. It's extremely difficult to move from SG to the UK unless you're a superstar or someone that's recognised as raising up the ranks and the company wants to nurture you, but you'll usually be cock blocked because of headcount challenges/politics/jealousy.
Also, visa sponsorship ain't really a big issue here too since 90% of the firms who meet the salary thresholds all offer visa sponsorship, at least all of the biggest firms all sponsor work visa.
UK job market sucks which I agree, but it's already better than 99% of the places out there lol and I could only think of the US which has way better job market. Comparing UK to SG and bringing up NUS/NTU is crazy lol and being smart doesn't mean you're automatically getting hired
At my BB the number of applications exploded for 2026 SA, while the number of slots available is down. AI and trackers make it so much easier for anyone to apply to every IB jobs. Ironically the bank is reconsidering hiring needs due to AI now already helping us in many time consuming tasks
What are the trackers?
Bristol trackr
Is this an american BB i.e. GS / MS / JPM / BoA because I've been told that slots have remained unchanged.
Trackers have effectively made the lowest possible bar of knowing about a company and taking the time to actually click through their careers page to find open roles effectively moot. This has caused a flood of candidates who without these trackers would have never applied (a specific anecdote I have been told from a recruiter at a MM bank was a internship role in the past, which would get ~800 applications (for the entirety of the recruitment process) got posted on trackers and had 1600 in the first two days and needed to be closed.
This effectively amplifies the low offer rates (2000 applicants for 6 roles vs 800 applicants), however, these are mostly low effort applications from low quality candidates. If you are a strong candidate (good uni, good exp.) you will still do well; only the game has changed such that you now need to apply within the first few days of a job posting.
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