The entry-level end of engineering is under real pressure. In engineering, entry-level hiring has fallen to -19% while senior hiring sits at -10%, a 9-percentage-point gap, according to a 2026 GOV.UK snapshot of entry-level hiring. That gap matters: it tells us employers are still backing experienced people but pulling back hardest on the roles that build the next generation of engineers.
The wider tech picture echoes this. The UK tech sector cut graduate jobs by 46 percent in the past year, with a further 53 percent drop projected, according to figures from the Institute of Student Employers reported by The Register. And techUK notes that Adzuna has seen a 30% drop in UK entry-level job postings since ChatGPT's launch, with graduates facing the toughest job market since 2018.
Here's the question worth asking: if agents can do the routine work juniors once cut their teeth on, does hiring graduates still make sense? We think it does, and the data on how people are entering the sector backs that up.
The way people get in is shifting, not closing. The DSIT AI Labour Market Survey 2025 shows apprenticeships have risen from 3% of AI hires in 2020 to 19% in 2025. That's a sixfold jump in five years, and it signals a clear move towards earn-while-you-learn routes where people build skills on live work.
This is the dynamic behind the headline. When a graduate developer works with an agent, the agent drafts boilerplate, writes first-pass tests and surfaces documentation in seconds. The junior spends less time on mechanical tasks and more time on the parts that actually grow an engineer: reading code critically, questioning an approach, deciding what good looks like and owning the outcome. The agent becomes a tireless pair, and the human learns judgement faster.
So the role of a junior isn't disappearing. It's moving up a level, sooner. That changes what you should hire for.
Start by hiring for the things agents can't replace. Curiosity, the ability to reason about trade-offs, and the habit of asking why before writing a line of code. With entry-level hiring down and graduate postings falling, the risk isn't a shortage of applicants. It's filtering for the people who'll grow fastest alongside your tools.
Hire this way and a quieter graduate market becomes an opportunity: you can bring in sharp people who grow quickly, instead of competing only for scarce senior hires.
We built Reed.ai to make this easier. We search 15 million candidates, rank a shortlist in under 30 seconds, contact matched people in under a minute and can book an interview in under three minutes, so you reach promising junior engineers before the market does. Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost. It's free for the people looking for work. Start hiring your next graduate developer today.
