Investment banks are recruiting more graduates, but there's still a long way to go

There are further reasons to believe that investment banks are increasing their graduate intake again in 2010, but sadly this uplift is unlikely to bring numbers back to pre-crisis levels.

The Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) has just released its winter review, revealing that investment banks and fund managers intend to take on 16.2% more students in 2010 than last year.

This is good news, and chimes with figures released in January by High Fliers Research. Still, AGR's 2009 review shows that i-banks chopped their intakes by 40.2% last year, so there's still a fair way to go (around 30%) before graduate recruitment reaches 2008 levels.

Source: AGR

Investment banking also remains the most highly-paid sector - graduates can earn an average of 38.2k and as much as 41.5k. Nonetheless, this has remained static year-on-year, while its nearest rival in the pay stakes, law, has increased salaries by 2.5%.

Source: AGR

It's still very much a man's world in the investment banking sector, with males accounting for an astounding 81.3% of graduate recruits.

Source: AGR

It's also worth mentioning that, in spite of a reduced appetite to recruit overseas candidates for UK roles, investment banks are the most likely to do so. They made up 25.6% of the 18.4% of respondents who said this was going to be part of their recruitment policy this year.