Graduates may earn less over the next few years, a study says

Only a third of the UK's 28 million jobs are "knowledge-based", economists at Cardiff and Lancaster universities say.

The government wants 50% of young people to enter higher education by 2010, up from the current 43%.

But the study, based on US and UK employment figures, forecasts the largest growth in the next few years will be in "lower-skilled jobs".

'No jobs explosion'

Its figures show starting salaries for graduates are falling, with last year's average of �12,659 down from �13,422 in 2002.

The Department for Education and Skills said the figure for this year would be �21,000.

But Anthony Hesketh, of Lancaster University, and Phil Brown, of Cardiff University, said this was based on "blue-chip" companies, taking on just one in 20 graduates.

They found that in the US - a more developed "knowledge economy" - just one-fifth of 145 million employees were "knowledge workers".

Their book, The Mismanagement of Talent: Employability and Jobs in the Knowledge Economy, predicts a decline in graduate prospects in both countries.

Dr Hesketh said: "It is not like the 1960s, when so few people went into higher education.

"A degree still gives you entry into the race, but it does not guarantee a ticket for the winners' enclosure."

He added: "We have tended to think that there has been an explosion in the number of jobs requiring knowledge workers.

"In reality, the situation is that what growth there has been has in fact been sluggish. Lower-skilled jobs have expanded at far faster rates than knowledge-worker jobs."

'Courses based on cost'

The findings come as the government attempts to get its Higher Education Bill, which proposes "variable" tuition fees of up to �3,000 a year, through its final reading by MPs on Wednesday.

It says this is justified by graduates earning on average �400,000 more than non-graduates over their lifetimes.

Mandy Telford, president of the National Union of Students, which is opposed to the fees plans, said: "This new research proves what we have always known and that is that not all graduates will earn the huge premiums the government use to try and justify forcing the cost of higher education on to the student.

"If top-up fees come in, then more and more students will be forced to choose their course based on its cost and therefore put themselves at a disadvantage before they even graduate."

The Bill passed its second reading in January by just five votes, after a rebellion by Labour backbenchers.

The government's claim that 80% of the 1.7 million jobs to be created in the UK economy by 2010 will require those with graduate qualifications was also treated with scepticism in the study.

Dr Hesketh said: "If there is an explosion in the demand from organisations for high value-adding human resources, it isn't showing up in the data from the US or the UK."

There are currently more than 1.5 million students in the UK's higher education system, with approximately 400,000 graduates entering the labour market each year.

Professor Brown said: "There are simply not enough good-quality jobs for those within universities.

"They are unlikely to find the jobs paying high wages that they tend to expect."