# University and jobs: which Spanish degrees lead to work? Employment, pay and job match by field

> Four years after graduating, 78% of Spain's 2019 university graduates were registered with Social Security, with an average contribution base of €31,000, but only 61% were in jobs matched to a degree. Medicine, nursing, dentistry, software and industrial engineering lead on employment, pay and job match; culture management, tourism, criminology and several humanities fields trail. Spain has the highest overqualification rate in the EU, 34% of tertiary graduates in 2025. The radical-centre answer publishes these figures on every degree's admission page, keeps grants so that origin does not decide the choice, and funds universities partly on how their graduates fare.

- URL: https://www.radicalcentre.eu/en/articles/university-and-jobs-which-spanish-degrees-lead-to-work
- Language: en
- Publisher: radical centre / centro radical
- Published: 2026-11-06
- Topic: Public services
- Author: radical centre
- Licence: CC BY 4.0

## Key points

- Of 2019 graduates, 78% were registered with Social Security in 2023, 61% in graduate-level contribution groups, with an average base of €31,000 (Ministry data compiled by U-Ranking).
- Medicine leads with 96.5% affiliation and 99.8% job match; nursing has 86.7% and 97.7%; software development reaches 91.4% affiliation.
- At the bottom, fewer than one in five graduates in culture management, tourism, hotel management and criminology have a job matched to their degree.
- Spain's overqualification rate, 34.0% of employed tertiary graduates in 2025, is the highest in the EU, against an EU average of 21.4% (Eurostat).
- Higher vocational graduates (FP de grado superior) had 70.2% affiliation four years out, with an average base of €22,500.

Every spring, families across Spain sit down with the list of degrees and try to guess which ones lead to work. They are guessing with less help than they should have, because Spain already collects the answer. The Ministry of Universities matches graduates with their Social Security records and can say, field by field, how many are working four years later, in what kind of job and on what pay.

## What the data say

The richest public summary is the 2025 edition of U-Ranking, the university ranking run by the BBVA Foundation and the Ivie, which used the ministry's records for students who graduated in 2019 and looked at them in 2023. Across 108 fields, 78% were registered with Social Security, 61% were in a contribution group that corresponds to graduate-level work, and the average contribution base was €31,000 a year.

The top of the table is health and technology. Medicine leads, with 96.5% in work, 99.8% in a job matched to the degree and an average base of €41,839. Nursing has 86.7% and 97.7%, dentistry 84.2% and 97.1%. Industrial organisation engineering, software development, at 91.4% affiliation, and pharmacy follow. Computing reaches 90.9% affiliation and €36,732, though only 67.9% of its graduates are in graduate-level contribution groups.

The bottom of the table is mostly in the humanities and in some newer applied degrees. In culture management, 72.6% are working and 19.1% have a job matched to their degree. Tourism has 74.9% and 19.3%, hotel management 76.0% and 18.8%, criminology 66.3% and 18.0%. The lowest affiliation rates are in protection of property and people (55.2%), fine arts (57.2%), history (58.0%) and art history (59.9%). Law sits at 64.5% affiliation and 52.6% job match. Business administration has a healthy 82.2% in work and only 41.0% in jobs matched to a degree. U-Ranking finds that no arts and humanities field beats the 78% average, and that in 35 humanities and social science fields half the graduates or fewer have a contract matched to their level.

The ministry's own figures by broad area, for the 2018-19 cohort and published by Aragón's statistics institute in April 2025, tell the same story: 89.4% affiliation in computing, 82.8% in engineering, industry and construction and 81.9% in health and social services, against 63.5% in arts and humanities.

## The Spanish problem: too many graduates in non-graduate jobs

Spain has a distinctive weakness that sits behind these tables. Eurostat's annual employment statistics put Spain's overqualification rate, the share of employed people with tertiary education working in jobs that don't require it, at 34.0% in 2025. That is the highest in the EU, ahead of Greece at 31.4%, against an EU average of 21.4%. The measure includes higher vocational graduates as well as university graduates, but it is a clear signal that the economy is using a lot of degrees below their level.

There is some good news in the U-Ranking release. Using INE's Labour Force Survey, it reports that underemployment among university graduates aged 22 to 29 fell to 22.4% in 2024, from around 30% after the Great Recession, and their unemployment fell from 19.3% in 2020 to 12% in 2024.

And there is the vocational route, which we described on [day 26](/en/articles/what-is-dual-vocational-training-fp-dual-spain). Of the students who finished a higher vocational qualification (FP de grado superior) in 2019-20, 70.2% were registered with Social Security four years later, with an average base of €22,500. University graduates of a year earlier stood at about 76% and €31,000. The cohorts and methods differ, so the comparison is rough, and it shows that for many fields a degree still pays.

## What to do with this

The left is right that the choice of degree must stay open to every student whatever their family can pay, which is why grants that cover the real cost of studying away from home matter so much, as we argued on [day 22](/en/articles/spain-student-grants-what-they-pay-cost-of-studying-away). A student whose best option is a degree in another city needs a grant that makes the move possible.

The market-liberal tradition is right that people choose better with good information, and that institutions improve when part of their money depends on results. So the ministry's figures for each degree, at each university, should be on the admission page: employment at one and four years, share in graduate-level jobs, average pay. Universities should get a part of their funding, a modest part, according to how their graduates do relative to similar students elsewhere.

What fits neither camp is the yardstick, and here Amartya Sen helps. In [Sen at school](/en/articles/sen-at-school-capability-approach-education) we described the capability approach: judge a policy by what it lets people do and become. A history degree that leads to teaching, archives or journalism expands a life even if its affiliation rate is lower; one that leads nowhere for most of its students needs to change. Sen's test treats the employment figure as one important piece of information and sets the goal as a route that leads somewhere. That is why the [flexible degrees](/en/articles/flexible-degrees-micro-credentials-vet-university-bridges-spain) we proposed on day 26, with bridges in both directions between vocational training and university and practical work in every year, belong in the same package. A student who chose tourism at 18 should be able to add a data or management credential at 22 without starting again.

Spain already has the data to show every 17-year-old which doors each degree tends to open. Publishing it on the admission page, beside the grant they can count on, would be one of the cheapest mobility policies on offer.

## FAQ

### Which university degrees have the most job opportunities in Spain?

On Ministry of Universities Social Security data for 2019 graduates, compiled by U-Ranking in 2025, the best placed are medicine (96.5% in work four years later), nursing, dentistry, industrial organisation engineering, software development (91.4%) and pharmacy. Computing has 90.9% affiliation and an average contribution base of €36,732.

### Which degrees have the lowest employment in Spain?

The lowest affiliation rates four years after graduating are in protection of property and people (55.2%), fine arts (57.2%), history (58.0%) and art history (59.9%). Culture management, tourism, hotel management and criminology have the lowest share of graduates in jobs that match their degree, below 20%.

### What is overqualification and how high is it in Spain?

Eurostat measures it as the share of employed people with tertiary education working in jobs that do not require it. Spain had the highest rate in the EU in 2025, 34.0%, against an EU average of 21.4%.

### Does higher vocational training (FP superior) lead to work as well as a degree?

Four years after finishing, 70.2% of 2019-20 higher vocational graduates were registered with Social Security, with an average base of €22,500, against roughly 76% and €31,000 for university graduates of a year earlier. The cohorts and measures differ, so the comparison is approximate.

## Sources

- [El 77,6% de los jóvenes universitarios logra empleos acordes a su cualificación (U-Ranking 2025)](https://www.u-ranking.es/pdf/NP-InsercionLaboral-URanking2025.pdf), Fundación BBVA – Ivie (2025)
- [Estadística de indicadores de afiliación a la Seguridad Social de los egresados universitarios. Curso 2018-2019](https://www.aragon.es/documents/d/guest/20250408_estadisticas-de-indicadores-afiliacion-seguridad-social-curso-universitarios-2018-2019), Instituto Aragonés de Estadística (2025)
- [Estadística de indicadores de afiliación a la Seguridad Social de los graduados en Formación Profesional. Curso 2019-2020](https://www.aragon.es/documents/d/guest/comunicado-indicadores-afiliacion-ss-formacion-profesional-2020), Instituto Aragonés de Estadística (2025)
- [Employment – annual statistics](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Employment_-_annual_statistics), Eurostat (2026)