Why "Software Engineer" Is the Most Competitive Graduate Title in the UK
Walk into any UK university careers fair and ask CS graduates what they're applying for. The answer, almost universally, is "Software Engineer." Which means every graduate software engineer role is contested by an enormous pool of applicants all with similar CVs, similar projects, and similar interview prep.
What most graduates don't realise is that there is a set of adjacent roles - technically demanding, highly paid, and genuinely interesting - that receive a fraction of the applications. If you're a CS graduate open to exploring beyond the standard SWE path, these five roles are worth understanding.
Before diving in, make sure your CV is ready for any technical application: Graduate CV for tech - template and examples.
1. Graduate DevOps / Platform Engineer
UK starting salary range: £38,000-£52,000
Key skills: Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD (GitHub Actions, Jenkins), cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure), scripting (Python, Bash)
What the role actually involves
Platform engineers and DevOps engineers build and maintain the infrastructure that software runs on. You're working on deployment pipelines, container orchestration, infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Pulumi), and monitoring systems (Datadog, Grafana). The work is deeply technical, often more so than standard application development.
Why it's less competitive
Most CS degrees teach application development, not infrastructure. Graduates who've spent time with Docker, Kubernetes, and cloud services during personal projects are comparatively rare. Companies are perpetually short of graduate-level platform engineers.
How to stand out
Build something and deploy it properly. A side project hosted on a VPS with a proper CI/CD pipeline (tests run on push, automatic deployment on merge to main, monitoring with Grafana) demonstrates exactly what these teams need. Get your AWS Cloud Practitioner certification - it takes about 20 hours to prepare and significantly boosts your CV for these roles.
Where to find UK roles
Fintech companies (Monzo, Wise, Checkout.com), cloud-native scale-ups, and any company running significant AWS or GCP infrastructure. Browse DevOps and infrastructure roles on GradSignal.
2. Graduate Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)
UK starting salary range: £42,000-£58,000
Key skills: Python or Go, distributed systems fundamentals, Linux, observability tooling, incident management
What the role actually involves
SRE is Google's discipline for applying software engineering to infrastructure and operations problems. SREs own the reliability, scalability, and performance of production systems. At the graduate level, you're working on reducing toil (manual operational work), building automation, and developing expertise in distributed systems failure modes.
Why it pays more
SRE requires a rare combination: you need to be able to write production-quality code AND understand how large-scale systems fail. Graduates who can do both are genuinely scarce. Companies that run at scale (Google, Meta, Amazon, Cloudflare, large banks) pay significantly above market for good SREs.
How to prepare
Read the Google SRE Book (free online). Understand the four golden signals: latency, traffic, errors, and saturation. For interviews, practice system design questions focused on reliability and failure scenarios rather than functional correctness.
3. Graduate Cloud Engineer
UK starting salary range: £38,000-£50,000
Key skills: AWS/Azure/GCP, Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform), networking fundamentals, security basics
What the role actually involves
Cloud engineers design, build, and manage cloud infrastructure. As organisations migrate legacy systems and build new services natively on cloud platforms, the demand for cloud-competent engineers has grown faster than the supply. UK graduate cloud engineer roles span banking (HSBC, Barclays all run major cloud migration programmes), consultancy (AWS, Deloitte, Accenture), and tech companies.
The certification advantage
Unlike most tech disciplines, cloud engineering has a clear certification track that hiring managers explicitly look for: AWS Solutions Architect Associate, Microsoft AZ-900/AZ-104, or Google Associate Cloud Engineer. These certifications take 2-4 weeks to prepare and are a credible signal of readiness that most software engineer CVs don't have.
4. Graduate Cyber Security / Information Security Engineer
UK starting salary range: £35,000-£50,000
Key skills: Network fundamentals, Linux, Python/scripting, security frameworks (OWASP, NIST), threat modelling
What the role actually involves
Security engineers work on protecting systems and data - everything from penetration testing and vulnerability research to building security tooling and responding to incidents. UK graduate security roles are particularly strong in government (GCHQ, NCSC, Ministry of Defence), financial services, and enterprise tech.
The market reality
The UK faces a severe cybersecurity skills shortage. NCSC consistently reports a large deficit of security professionals. This means graduate security roles are advertised by a huge range of employers, many of whom will waive the usual "2 years' experience" requirement for demonstrably skilled graduates.
Differentiation
Participate in CTF (Capture The Flag) competitions and document your writeups on a blog or GitHub. GCHQ's CyberFirst programme is worth researching for government-track graduates. A CompTIA Security+ or CEH certification demonstrates baseline competence.
5. Graduate Technical Product Manager (TPM)
UK starting salary range: £38,000-£55,000
Key skills: Technical fluency (can read and understand code, APIs, architecture), data analysis, stakeholder communication, product thinking
What the role actually involves
Technical PMs bridge the gap between engineering teams and business stakeholders. They own the product roadmap, write technical specifications, prioritise engineering work, and ensure that what's built aligns with what customers need. A CS background is increasingly required - companies want TPMs who can have credible technical conversations with engineers, not just relay requirements.
Why CS graduates have an edge
Most MBA-type PM applicants lack technical credibility with engineering teams. A CS graduate who can read code, understand system constraints, and have a genuine opinion on architecture decisions is significantly more valuable. Starting salaries are competitive with SWE roles, and progression into senior PM or product leadership tracks tends to be faster.
The Common Thread
All five of these roles share something: they're technically demanding, under-applied for compared to standard SWE positions, and actively hiring in the UK. If you're willing to invest time in the right skills, you can enter the market with less competition and comparable or better pay.
Browse graduate tech roles on GradSignal across all categories, and use our interview playbooks to prepare specifically for the companies you're targeting - whatever role type you pursue.