Graduate Prospects

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.

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

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

• Graduate recruitment platform
• Postgraduate course search
• Careers guidance services
• Graduate labour market data
• Employer job advertising

Headquarters

HQ city

Manchester

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

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

1. 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.
2. University Recruitment Packages: Specialized packages for universities to advertise postgraduate courses and recruitment opportunities to students and graduates.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels9 records

Core 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

Named customers11 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• JisccoreOthersProspects 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

Broad 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

• YouTubeyoutube.com/ProspectsJisc
• Facebookfacebook.com/graduateprospects
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/prospects-ac-uk
• Instagraminstagram.com/prospects.ac.uk
• TikToktiktok.com/@prospects.ac.uk
• Xx.com/prospects

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Graduate Prospects