Wednesday 19 July 2017 2:21 pm

Average graduate salary by university after five years: The 10 places to study where earnings grow fastest

By: Lynsey Barber

If you want to get ahead as you step onto the career ladder, London School of Economics might be your best bet.

Not only do grads from the prestigious institution – where none other than Angelina Jolie is a guest lecturer – earn some of the highest salaries fresh from studying, they also manage to increase their earnings more than anyone else in the first five years of their career.

LSE alumn had boosted salaries by 38 per cent, on average, hitting a tidy sum of £41,810 going into their bank account, according to the numbers crunched by jobs website Adzuna.

Read more: This is where you need to go to university to earn top dollar as a graduate

That's up from an already high starting salary of £30,268, the seventh highest in Adzuna's ranking for average earnings in the first year of leaving.

Nottingham grads had the second fastest growing salary, hitting £36,556 five years on.

That was on a par with the earnings of a Cambridge grad after five years of £36,859 and catching initial higher earners: Cambridge grads start out on the fifth highest annual salary (£30,680) in the first year of leaving.

And grads of Bournemouth even catch up with those of Exeter, growing the third fastest, by 35 per cent.

Read more: ­­Is there an economic case for scrapping university tuition fees?

They earned £32,717 after five years, just shy of Exeter alumn's £33,093, But they started out on £24,230, far short of eighth ranked Exeter on £30,088 in the first year of work.

"Studying at any Russell Group university adds serious value to earning potential, but the research also shows grads from other institutions, including Bournemouth and London Met, are better at catapulting themselves up the salary rankings," said Adzuna co-founder Doug Monro.

And check out how those longer term salaries compare to the those of the initial high earners below.