UK 300: top hospitality, leisure and tourism employers

…as voted for by students and graduates

The UK 300 features the largest and most comprehensive annual survey of student opinion on graduate careers, employers and their own job hunts. The survey determines not only the most popular 300 graduate employers in the UK overall, but also the most popular graduate employers in a range of career sectors, including hospitality, leisure and tourism.

The top graduate employers for hospitality, leisure and tourism careers are listed in the table below. There are considerable changes this year. Other than Hilton, which remains the most popular hospitality employer, all of the employers have swapped places in the ranks: for example, Merlin Entertainments climbs to second place from seventh and the InterContinental Hotels Group falls from fourth to seventh.

The students and graduates surveyed who were interested in hospitality, leisure and tourism careers:

were, unsurprisingly, more likely to want an international career: 16% planned to look for their first graduate job abroad (the highest percentage to do so, except for those wanting to work for a charity or not-for-profit) and 36% rated ‘international interactions/opportunities’ as a ‘very important’ factor when choosing between employers, compared to a 34% average.
were much more likely than average to prefer to work for a small or medium-sized enterprise – 22%, compared to a 16% average across all sectors – although the highest proportion of students interested in the sector, 31%, would prefer a large international employer.
appeared to put a high value on a positive working environment: students in this sector placed more importance on ‘friendly colleagues’ and ‘being appreciated at work’ than students interested in any other sector, with 54% and 61% rating them ‘very important’ factors when choosing between employers.

Percentages have been rounded.

Over 74,700 students and graduates took part in the Trendence UK Graduate Survey, which formed the basis of the results in the UK 300.