Graduate Prospects
Graduate Prospects operates prospects.ac.uk, the UK's busiest graduate careers website, providing job search, career guidance, postgraduate course information, and employer recruitment advertising. It serves students, graduates, universities, and UK employers as a wholly owned subsidiary of Jisc.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded1972
- HeadquartersManchester, United Kingdom
- Headcount101–250
- GTM typeB2B and B2C
- OfferingDigital Commerce or Content
What Graduate Prospects does
Graduate Prospects (legal entity: Prospects, registered in England as company number 02881024) operates prospects.ac.uk, the self-described UK's busiest graduate careers website, generating 1.4 million monthly sessions and 114,000 monthly vacancy searches. Founded in 1972 and headquartered in Manchester with a registered office in Bristol, the company is wholly owned by Jisc, the UK higher education technology consortium. The platform serves three customer segments: students and graduates seeking career guidance and postgraduate study options; employers and recruiters advertising graduate, apprenticeship, internship, and work-experience vacancies; and universities and higher education institutions promoting postgraduate courses.
The product surface spans a searchable job board across 23 sectors, 400-500+ job profiles and descriptions, a Job Match personality quiz, a postgraduate course and funding database, careers advice content (CVs, interviews, applications), and labour market intelligence via the Prospects Luminate sub-brand. Content is also delivered through the Future You webinar and podcast series. Technology is a web-based platform with self-serve recruiter portal at recruiters.prospects.ac.uk, plus integrations with Hedd (degree data) and Luminate (LMI) for partner distribution.
The business model is primarily transaction-based employer job advertising (£370 for a 2-week Fast Recruit advert, £585 for a 4-week Quality Recruit advert, and bespoke Planned Recruit multi-year packages), supplemented by recurring university recruitment packages for postgraduate course promotion. Distribution is digital-first across prospects.ac.uk, partner sites, and an active social presence (Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, Spotify, Facebook). CEO Jayne Rowley leads the business, which operates within the Jisc group structure rather than as a standalone venture-backed entity.
Graduate Prospects firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Graduate Prospects
- Legal name
- Prospects
- Website
- https://prospects.ac.uk
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 1972
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 101–250 employees
- Short description
- Graduate Prospects operates prospects.ac.uk, the UK's busiest graduate careers website, providing job search, career guidance, postgraduate course information, and employer recruitment advertising. It serves students, graduates, universities, and UK employers as a wholly owned subsidiary of Jisc.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Graduate Prospects industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Graduate Career Services
- NAICS
- Employment Placement Agencies (561311), Employment Placement Agencies and Executive Search Services (56131), Educational Services (611)
- SIC
- Services-Employment Agencies (7361), Services-Educational Services (8200)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Career Services & Job Placement Platforms (Jobs, Recruiting, Employer Networks) (EDAFAMAM)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Internship/Apprenticeship Matching & Work-Based Learning Platforms (EDAFAMAL), Graduate & Professional School Admissions Counseling (MBA/MD/JD/MS) (EDANAEAD), Prospect Recruitment & Outreach (EDALAAAA), Job Search Strategy & Application Skills (EDAAAKAC)
Keywords
Where Graduate Prospects is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Manchester
- HQ country
- United Kingdom
- HQ region
- Europe
Offices1 record
Markets served
Graduate Prospects business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B and B2C
- Offering type
- Digital Commerce or Content
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- Employer Job Advertising: Charging employers for job adverts placed on the platform. Fast Recruit (2-week advert) costs £370, Quality Recruit (4-week advert) costs £585, with Planned Recruit custom packages available. Revenue generated from employers seeking to recruit graduates, apprentices, and interns.
- University Recruitment Packages: Specialized packages for universities to advertise postgraduate courses and recruitment opportunities to students and graduates.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Transaction based/ take rate | Pay-as-you-go | Fast Recruit - 2-week job advert |
| Transaction based/ take rate | Pay-as-you-go | Quality Recruit - 4-week job advert |
| Other | Multi-year contract | Planned Recruit - Custom Package |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels5 records
Marketing channels9 records
Graduate Prospects product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Graduate Prospects operates the UK's national graduate careers website at prospects.ac.uk, providing free job listings, postgraduate course search, career sector information, a job matching quiz, and career webinars and podcasts for students, graduates, and postgraduate applicants. On the employer side, it runs a separate recruiters portal where organisations pay to advertise graduate jobs, internships, and placements via tiered recruitment packages (Fast Recruit, Quality Recruit, Planned Recruit). It also supplies graduate outcomes data and benchmarking through its Prospects Luminate data service to UK higher education institutions.
Product overview
Graduate Prospects operates Prospects.ac.uk as a career guidance and recruitment advertising platform serving students, graduates, and UK employers. The core offering includes a job search database for graduate positions, apprenticeships, and internships; 500+ job profiles for career exploration; and the Job Match quiz for personality-based career matching. For postgraduate study, it provides course search across universities, funding guidance, and information on conversion courses, Masters degrees, MBAs, PhDs, and professional qualifications. On the recruitment side, it offers three tiers of employer advertising products: Fast Recruit (2-week basic posting), Quality Recruit (4-week premium posting with support), and Planned Recruit (customised recruitment campaigns). Additional services include Prospects Luminate for labour market intelligence, and Future You webinars/podcasts for career content. The platform reaches 1.4 million sessions monthly with 114,000 monthly vacancy searches.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- Prospects Luminate: Labour market insights resource providing views and insights from Prospects' labour market experts as well as industry and sector guests.
- Future You
Products and services
- Fast Recruit Entry-level job advertising package on the Graduate Prospects recruiters portal that places a graduate job advert live for two weeks for £370, targeted at UK employers and recruitment agencies hiring for early-careers roles.
- Quality Recruit Standard job advertising package on the recruiters portal that keeps a graduate job advert live for four weeks at £585, providing broader candidate reach than Fast Recruit for UK employers and recruitment agencies.
- Planned Recruit Custom-priced, end-to-end recruitment advertising package on the recruiters portal designed for employers running larger graduate campaigns or multiple vacancies, with bespoke terms negotiated directly with the Graduate Prospects team.
- Job Match Quiz Free online personality-and-preferences quiz on prospects.ac.uk that recommends suitable job roles for students and graduates based on their answers, helping them navigate the careers library.
- Postgraduate Course Search Free UK postgraduate course search service on prospects.ac.uk where prospective students can browse and compare taught and research postgraduate programmes across UK universities as part of the "Choose your future" official service.
- Prospects Luminate Data and benchmarking service from Graduate Prospects providing UK universities with graduate outcomes, destinations, and sector intelligence to evidence employability performance and inform institutional strategy.
- Future You Webinars and Podcasts Free digital webinar and podcast series produced by Graduate Prospects covering careers, postgraduate study, and industry insights for prospective students and graduates, accessible via the prospects.ac.uk portal.
Quantifiable outcome
- 80% of students using prospects.ac.uk already have some work experience
Companies that use Graduate Prospects
Customer profileNamed customers11 records
Segments3 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Graduate Prospects technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Graduate Prospects partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
One partnership is on record.
- JisccoreProspects is part of Jisc, the UK higher education technology consortium. Jisc provides digital solutions and technology services for UK higher education, giving Prospects backing as a trusted, authoritative source for graduate career and university information.
Scale indicators7 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights5 records
Graduate Prospects competitors and assessment
Company assessmentBroad incumbents
- Glassdoor: Global jobs and employer-review platform that competes with Prospects in graduate recruitment advertising and careers content, though it does not specialize in the UK early-careers niche.
- Indeed: Global job search engine with a dominant UK presence, competing with Prospects for employer recruitment advertising spend and graduate candidate traffic across all experience levels.
- LinkedIn: Global professional network with extensive graduate hiring, job listings, and careers content; competes with Prospects on employer recruitment advertising budgets and graduate candidate mindshare as a much larger incumbent.
Regional players
- Adzuna: UK-focused job search engine aggregating vacancies from multiple sources with employer advertising products, operating in the same UK job advertising market as Prospects' recruiter portal.
- Reed: UK-established job board and recruitment services company with graduate job listings and employer advertising, comparable to Prospects' recruitment offering within the UK market but broader in scope across all experience levels.
- StudentJob: European student and graduate job board operating in the UK with similar employer advertising and student job search functionality, comparable to Prospects' core graduate job marketplace but with a broader European footprint.
Direct peers
- Bright Network: UK-based early-careers membership platform connecting graduates and students with employers through events, content, and a job board; competes head-on with Prospects on employer recruitment advertising and graduate candidate engagement.
- RateMyPlacement: UK platform focused on student internships, placements, and graduate jobs with employer advertising packages — overlapping Prospects' internship, work experience, and graduate recruitment offerings.
- Target Jobs: One of the longest-running UK graduate careers sites, directly competing with Prospects.ac.uk in graduate job listings, employer profiles, and careers advice for UK students and graduates.
- Milkround: UK graduate job board offering employer advertising, careers advice, and industry events targeting students and recent graduates — a near-1:1 competitor to Prospects in the UK early-careers recruitment advertising market.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat4 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Graduate Prospects social profiles
Digital presenceGraduate Prospects financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Graduate Prospects leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles1 record
Graduate Prospects funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Graduate Prospects M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Graduate Prospects
What does Graduate Prospects do?
Graduate Prospects operates the UK's national graduate careers website at prospects.ac.uk, providing free job listings, postgraduate course search, career sector information, a job matching quiz, and career webinars and podcasts for students, graduates, and postgraduate applicants. On the employer side, it runs a separate recruiters portal where organisations pay to advertise graduate jobs, internships, and placements via tiered recruitment packages (Fast Recruit, Quality Recruit, Planned Recruit). It also supplies graduate outcomes data and benchmarking through its Prospects Luminate data service to UK higher education institutions.
Is Graduate Prospects a public or private company?
Graduate Prospects is a private company. It is classified as nonprofit foundation owned and is currently operating.
When was Graduate Prospects founded?
Graduate Prospects was founded in 1972. It employs 101 to 250 people.
Where is Graduate Prospects based?
Graduate Prospects is headquartered in Manchester, United Kingdom, in the Europe region.
How does Graduate Prospects make money?
Two revenue lines are on record. Employer Job Advertising is the primary driver. The others are university Recruitment Packages.
Who are Graduate Prospects's main competitors?
Broad incumbents on record are Glassdoor, Indeed and LinkedIn. Regional players are Adzuna, Reed and StudentJob. Direct peers are Bright Network, RateMyPlacement, Target Jobs and Milkround.
Does Graduate Prospects have an API?
No public API is recorded for Graduate Prospects.
What industry is Graduate Prospects in?
Graduate Prospects's product category is Graduate Career Services. Its primary akta.pro industry code is EDAFAMAM, Career Services & Job Placement Platforms (Jobs, Recruiting, Employer Networks), with a secondary code of EDAFAMAL, Internship/Apprenticeship Matching & Work-Based Learning Platforms. Its NAICS code is 561311 and its SIC code is 7361.