Graduates are too 'socially conscious' to become bankers, Teach First boss claims

Ambitious graduates are no longer interested in pursuing careers in banking because they are too “socially conscious”, the outgoing head of Britain's biggest graduate recruiter has said.

Since the financial crash, lucrative graduate schemes in the city have lost their allure as big pay packets alone now fail to motivate young people, according to the founder of Teach First.

The charity recruits ambitious graduates and after minimal training, parachutes them into tough inner city schools where they are tasked with raising aspiration among some of the most deprived children in the country.

Brett Wigdortz, who set up Teach First in 2002, said that the charity has grown in popularity due to a change in attitudes among young people.

"I really think it has come about through the social change that millennials want to make," he said.

"We have really tapped into something that people want to make a difference and to help improve the lives of children. That has become a more popular thing for graduates to do than just to focus on just money.

"We showed there was a huge demand for socially conscious gradate jobs."

Mr Wigdortz said that it prior to he financial crash of 2008, a large proportion of graduates from top universities were attracted to careers in finance.

"Ten to 15 years ago, there was a large part of graduates that felt if you're smart you need to go into banking," he said. "Too much talent was being sucked into one sector.

"Now things are more balanced. We saw that there was an untapped resource that graduates who really wanted to make a difference."

Teach First has been the biggest graduate recruiter for the past three years, with over 1,400 graduates each year sent to teach in deprived schools. The vast majority - around 70 per cent - of recruits are from the elite Russel Group universities.  

"The whole idea that the UK's top talent is going into teaching in lower income schools is a huge achievement," he said. "We are about a fifth of teachers in low income schools."

A number of similar graduate schemes have been set up - often by Teach Firstalumni - to attract high achieving graduates into front line roles in social services, prisons and the police.

"I think it is a really positive development that you see lots of graduates who want to make a difference," Mr Wigdortz said.

Mr Wigdortz, who will step down this week after running Teach First for 15 years, said that the British education has undergone a major transformation.

"The system has a higher expectation of lower-income children," he said.

"Andrew Adonis and Michael Gove helped to make that change. 15 years ago I visited a number of schools where headteachers would say stuff like 'You can't expect too much of them' or 'If I keep them off the street that is a success'. That was a common belief 15 years ago.

"The system is not fair, there are still a lot of children out there not getting what they deserve but it is better."