The pristine graduate certificate may still be warm from the printer, but for many of Britain’s newest university leavers, the post-uni dream has already soured. As the cost-of-living crisis deepens, a quiet migration is underway: graduates are moving back into childhood bedrooms, not out of choice but out of necessity.
Take Chloe, 22, who graduated from the University of Manchester with a first in Economics. She had planned to rent a flat in Leeds with two friends, but when the letting agent asked for six months’ rent upfront, the arithmetic collapsed. “I earn £24,000 a year before tax. After student loan repayments and national insurance, my take-home is about £1,500 a month. A one-bed in Leeds is £900 a month without bills. I can’t afford to eat,” she told me, her voice flat with resignation. Chloe now sleeps in her childhood single bed in Doncaster, commuting an hour each way to a job that barely covers her travel.
Her story is not unique. Research from the Higher Education Policy Institute suggests that one in three recent graduates in the UK now lives with parents. The figure rises sharply in London and the South East, where average rents for a room exceed £800 per month. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation notes that the real living wage for a single person outside London is £12.00 an hour. Many graduate jobs start around £22,000 to £25,000, which works out at roughly £11.50 an hour. They are falling short before they even begin.
The “graduate premium” – the wage boost from a degree – has been shrinking for years. But the current economic squeeze has turned a slow erosion into a sudden collapse. Inflation may be easing, but prices are static at a high level. Rents, fuel, and groceries continue to climb. For graduates, the math is brutal: after rent, bills, and transport, there is sometimes nothing left for savings, let alone socialising or starting a family.
Regional inequality sharpens the agony. A graduate in Newcastle may find a room for £450, but starting salaries there are often lower too. In the South West, tourism and seasonal work dominate, leaving many graduates overqualified and underpaid. The government’s focus on “high-skilled, high-wage” jobs feels like a cruel joke to those stacking shelves or taking zero-hours contracts in coffee shops.
Unions are beginning to notice. The University and College Union (UCU) has warned that the student debt burden – now average £45,000 per graduate – combined with poor wages is creating a “lost generation”. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has called for a higher minimum wage for under-25s and stronger rental protections. But progress is slow. Landlords and employers point to market forces. For graduates, those forces feel like a vice.
“I feel like I’ve done everything right,” says James, 23, a physics graduate from Bristol. He works in a warehouse for £11.50 an hour. He cannot afford to move out of his parents’ house in Reading. “My mum says it’s not my fault. But it feels like failure.”
James is not alone. The Office for National Statistics reports that the proportion of young adults living with parents is the highest since records began in 1996. Nearly three million 20-to-34-year-olds now live at home. Many are graduates. The housing market, soaring rents, and stagnant wages have created a trap from which escape seems impossible.
There is no easy answer. The government has announced limited rent reforms, but they will not take effect until 2025. Meanwhile, graduates are voting with their feet – moving abroad in record numbers. Canada, Australia, and Germany are poaching the talent that Britain has spent years and thousands of pounds educating.
For now, the rooms with floral wallpaper and single beds are filling up again. The cost-of-living crisis has turned a rite of passage into a retreat. And the question echoes from Doncaster to Durham, from Bristol to Bradford: what is a degree worth when it cannot even buy a room of one’s own?
