Graduate jobs & schemes in Cork 2025

The graduate job/scheme market is competitive in Cork. But that doesn’t mean you won’t get into a graduate programme. If you take the right steps, you can boost your chances of getting a graduate job or getting on to a scheme.   

You’ll want to apply in your final year of university and start looking as early as possible to boost your chances. We’re also here to help.   

If you want to boost your skills further and make your applications stand out, try our free online learning tools – Pathways and GradSims.  

There are plenty of graduate opportunities across a range of sectors in Cork. Discover graduate employers - with our dedicated guides, you’ll learn more about the companies offering graduate programmes, how to apply, and more.  

There are different types of graduate programmes you can get on to in Cork when you have a university degree.   

You could get a graduate job - which is a full-time role within a company and usually unstructured with a shorter application process. Or you could get on to a graduate scheme – a structured training programme that typically would run between one to three years. Sectors include – but aren’t limited to – marketing, law, engineering, finance, IT, HR, and healthcare. 

For example, a marketing graduate scheme would include rotations across different teams, so you gain experience in different marketing roles including digital, product, content, social media marketing, brand management, and market research. Whereas a marketing graduate job would likely be for a specific role within a sector – for example: graduate digital marketing executive.

There has been some research into average graduate salary in Cork, but we’d take these with a pinch of salt. It really does depend on things like the company, sector and role. For example, sectors like finance and law may offer bigger salaries and bonuses across their graduate jobs and schemes.  

According to a 2023 survey conducted by GradIreland, the average salary on offer to graduates in Ireland is approximately €31,938. 

The cost of living in Cork can be reasonable compared to some other major cities like London.   

However, how expensive it is to live in Cork really does depend on your own habits and preferences. You’ll need to factor in things like rental costs, utility bills, council tax and travel.   

There are ways to save money on these things. For example, you could rent a room in a house outside the city centre and share or buddy up with friends instead of renting a whole house by yourself, to help split the cost of rent and bills.