Graduate Employment and Career Outcomes

Each year, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) conducts its Graduate Employment Survey (GES) through the Career Center, surveying all full-time undergraduate degree graduates on their employment, further studies, and other statuses within half a year (roughly September to December). This is the primary official data source for understanding HKUST graduates’ career outcomes. This article takes the 2024 survey^※ as its backbone, unpacking the overall picture, the five schools, industry and job functions, salaries, offers, and further-study destinations layer by layer, with multi-year trends and cross-institution salary comparisons appended. For discussion of tuition fees, financial aid, and admission thresholds, see the separate pieces on Tuition, Accommodation & Scholarships, Local JUPAS Admissions, and Non-local Admissions.

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# 1. Overall Picture: GES 2024

According to the HKUST 2024 Undergraduate GES^※, the survey ran from September to 31 December 2024, covering 2,389 full-time undergraduate degree graduates. A total of 2,189 valid responses were received, yielding a response rate of 91.6%^※—a marginal rise of 0.9 percentage points over the previous cohort’s 90.7%. This sample representativeness ranks high among Hong Kong institutions.

# 1.1 Overall Employment Status

Per the official Statistical Summary^※, the full status breakdown for the Class of 2024 is as follows (year-on-year changes from Class of 2023 in brackets):

The full-time employment rate (62.5%) dropped 6.1 percentage points from the previous cohort’s 68.6%, marking the lowest figure since 2020. The primary absorbing channels are the concurrently rising further-study rate (23.4%, a five-year high) and the ‘Others / returned to home country’ category; this seesaw between further studies and employment coincides with global economic uncertainty and structural shifts in the non-local student body. The official line^※ puts the ‘still seeking employment’ rate at 2.2%, unchanged from the previous year. Of the 49 graduates still seeking, 27 reported they were ‘still waiting for a desirable job’ and 22 had ‘just started applying’—frictional rather than structural unemployment. Separately, based on third-party compilation of University Grants Committee (UGC) data^※, the unemployment proportion for HKUST graduates is on the lower side among the eight UGC-funded institutions.

A look at the five-year trend shows the full-time employment rate declining stepwise from 71.9% in 2021 to 62.5% in 2024, while the further-study rate climbed from 17.5% all the way to 23.4%. Over these four years the two trajectories have formed a clear scissor gap: employment down, further studies up.

Another category not to be overlooked is ‘Others (e.g. returned to home country)’—accounting for 4.2% (91 persons) of the Class of 2024, and stable in the 3.9%–4.6% range in recent years. According to official notes^※, this item has been reported separately since the Class of 2022, mainly capturing non-local graduates who return to their home countries after graduation. As the proportion of non-local undergraduates at HKUST rises, the scale of this ‘graduation-then-departure’ outflow deserves sustained attention; for background see Non-local Intake Expansion — from 20% to 40%. It must be emphasised that ‘returned to home country’ is not unemployment; it and the 2.2% ‘still seeking’ are independent categories and should not be added together.

# 1.2 Salary Snapshot

Per GES 2024 overall data^※, the mean monthly salary for full-time and self-employed graduates was HK$27,567, with a median of HK$24,000—climbing 3.0% and 3.4% respectively over 2023, both setting new five-year highs. The monthly salary definition comprises base salary, commissions, bonuses, and allowances such as meals and transport.

Salaries have risen steadily over the last five years: mean monthly pay advanced from HK$21,984 in 2020 through 23,208, 24,320, 26,772 to 27,567 in 2024; the median climbed from HK$18,667 to HK$24,000. The official chart^※ also notes that the salary-sample size in 2024 (957 persons) shrank noticeably compared to prior years (1,119–1,263 between 2020 and 2023), corroborating the shift of more graduates towards further studies.

Converting to annual terms, and drawing on third-party media compilation of UGC survey data^※, HKUST bachelor’s graduates recorded an average annual salary of approximately HK$330,000, placing them in the middle tier among the eight publicly funded universities in the 2023/24 academic year:

Source: Dot Dot News compilation of UGC data (August 2025)^※. The mid-table annual salary partly reflects the larger share of science and engineering graduates at HKUST, and a sectoral mix different from the finance- and law-heavy profiles of HKU and CUHK, rather than a simple question of absolute calibre. By job function (see Section 6), starting pay for HKUST graduates in finance roles is highly competitive.

# 1.3 Understanding the Survey’s Scope

Before quoting these figures, three methodological points must be clarified to avoid misinterpretation. First, the GES captures a short-term snapshot roughly six months post-graduation (September–December of the graduation year); it is not a measure of long-term career progression, and starting salaries reflect only initial entry levels. Second, all breakdowns by salary, industry, and job function are based solely on full-time and self-employed graduates, excluding those in part-time work, further studies, or who returned home; the salary-reporting sample (957 in 2024) is therefore considerably smaller than the full respondent pool (2,189). Third, the data comes from voluntary self-reporting; although a 91.6% response rate is high, a minor self-selection bias cannot be ruled out. With these three caveats in mind, one can accurately read a ‘full-time employment rate of 62.5%’ as not equivalent to ‘only six in ten found a path’—once further studies (23.4%), self-employment, and part-time work are tallied, the vast majority of graduates have a clearly defined next step.

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# 2. Five-School Panorama: Sharp Divergence

Among a single graduating cohort, outcomes diverge markedly by school. According to GES 2024 school-level data^※, the key indicators for the five schools and the Academy of Interdisciplinary Studies (AIS) are compared below (full-time employed and further studies being the two principal pathways):

Several clear dividing lines emerge:

• Science is the further-studies heavyweight. Nearly four in ten (39.0%) Science graduates chose to continue their studies, and the full-time employment rate was just 47.1%—the only school where further studies and direct full-time employment are comparably close. Science students’ traditional path towards research and academia is here quantitatively borne out. The full-time employment rate fell a steep 10.5 percentage points year on year, mainly diverted by further studies (whose rate surged 11.5 pp).
• Business has the highest direct-employment rate. 72.4% of SBM graduates entered full-time employment, and the further-study proportion (14.6%) was the lowest among the five schools, making it the most ‘employment-oriented’ school.
• AIS leads on starting salary. Its mean monthly salary of HK$35,720 was almost 30% above the university-wide average and higher than all traditional schools; this aligns with AIS’s positioning as an integrator of emerging interdisciplinary fields such as data science and technology management. According to an AIS official press release^※, the school’s employment rate under a broader definition (including part-time and self-employed) reached 73.2%, with the mean monthly salary gaining about 21%; the full-time employment rate under the standard GES definition was 69.0%—the two figures rest on different definitions and can be viewed side by side.
• Engineering claims the highest median salary. SENG’s median monthly salary of HK$25,000 topped the five schools (even if its mean trailed AIS and SBM), suggesting a more concentrated distribution with a solid ‘core’—consistent with the high degree of standardisation in engineering starting salaries.

Year-on-year fluctuations across schools are equally telling. Per year-on-year school data^※, SHSS bucked the trend in 2024 with its full-time employment rate rising 12.5 percentage points (from 56.9% to 69.4%) and its further-study rate falling accordingly—the exact opposite of the ‘employment down, studies up’ pattern seen in Science. Because the sample is small (only 62 valid responses), such annual swings for this school should be read as trend lines rather than single-point snapshots. SBM’s full-time employment rate dipped 4.8 pp but remained firmly in first place at 72.4%; SENG’s decline (−6.5 pp) matched the pace of the university as a whole. Overall, the further-study diversion in the School of Science was the single largest factor pulling down the university-wide full-time employment rate in 2024.

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# 3. Further Studies: Proportion and Destinations

According to GES 2024 data^※, a total of 512 graduates (23.4%) elected to continue their studies, making it the second-largest post-graduation pathway and a rate that hit a five-year high. By school, the School of Science (199 persons, 38.9% of the total continuing to study) and the School of Engineering (171 persons, 33.4%) together contributed over seventy per cent of those pursuing further education, while SBM accounted for 113 persons (22.1%) and SHSS and AIS contributed a dozen or so each.

Destinations: nearly half stay in Hong Kong; the US is the top overseas choice. Among those pursuing further studies, 277 stayed in Hong Kong and 235 went abroad. Of those staying in Hong Kong, 180 (65.0% of Hong Kong-bound further-study students) remained at HKUST for postgraduate programmes, with the rest distributed among HKU (32), CUHK (15), and PolyU (8). The main overseas destinations were: the United States (79 persons, 33.6%)^※, the United Kingdom (40, 17.0%), Australia (20), and Singapore (19), with scattered numbers in Canada, Japan, Sweden, France, and elsewhere.

Notably, two-thirds (65.0%) of those pursuing further studies in Hong Kong stayed at HKUST—a high retention rate that reflects both the attractiveness of the University’s own taught and research postgraduate programmes to its undergraduates and the internal pathway it has built from undergraduate to postgraduate study, underpinned by its research strengths in engineering and science.

Degree level and field. Of the 442 persons who reported the degree level they were pursuing, taught master’s degrees accounted for 54.3%, research master’s 22.4%, and research doctorate 16.3%—i.e., predominantly master’s-level, with a small proportion going directly to a PhD. Fields of further study were heavily concentrated in Engineering & Technology (42.6%), Science (26.1%), and Business & Management (17.5%), which together claimed over eighty per cent—consistent with HKUST’s strong science and engineering profile.

According to the 2023/24 Annual Report^※, widening the lens to the postgraduate level, the proportion of HKUST PhD graduates who continued to further studies (mostly post-doctoral or academic positions) reached 50.5%^※, demonstrating the University’s robust feeder power for an academic research track. For the cross-school academic ecosystem, see Schools Overview.

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# 4. Employment by Industry Sector: Business and Engineering Dominate

According to GES 2024 industry data^※, among the 1,089 full-time and self-employed graduates, Commerce and Business was the largest employment sector, absorbing 57.5%, followed by Engineering and Industry (26.0%); together they accounted for over eighty per cent:

One notable structural shift: the proportion entering Government and Related Organisations has nearly doubled (from 2.8% to 5.8%), and the sector’s mean monthly salary (HK$29,094) is second only to Commerce and Business among the five sectors, reflecting the growing appeal of public-sector employment for graduates during an uncertain economic cycle.

Industry is strongly correlated with school. Per school-level industry data^※, 84.4% of SBM graduates entered the Commerce and Business sector; 57.0% of SENG graduates entered Engineering and Industry, while 35.9% ‘crossed over’ into Business (typically in technology or quantitative roles); Science graduates spread the widest, with 37.4% entering Education and 35.2% entering Business. This explains the earlier observation that a non-trivial proportion of Engineering graduates ‘switch fields’—engineering training is equally prized in fintech and data-analytics roles. For relevant programme details, see Engineering Deep Dive and School of Business & Management Deep Dive.

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# 5. Job Function: Engineering, Finance, and Programming as the Big Three

When the breakdown is done by specific job function rather than industry sector, per GES 2024 job-function data^※, the five most concentrated job functions for full-time employed graduates were:

Banking/Finance is overwhelmingly the top-paying function: at a mean of HK$43,154 and median of HK$35,000, it far outstrips the second-tier cluster of programming (HK$27,629) and engineering (HK$25,267), representing the peak of the HKUST salary pyramid. Conversely, accounting and audit roles, while stable, register relatively low starting pay among major functions (median HK$19,200). These job-function differences explain individual starting salaries more effectively than school- or industry-level breakdowns.

Five-year job-function shifts also hint at the sectoral headwinds and tailwinds. According to 2020–2024 job-function trend data^※, the share of Engineering roles rebounded from 19.5% in 2023 to 22.7% in 2024, reclaiming first place among the five; meanwhile Banking/Finance (17.0% → 15.1%) and System Analysis & Programming (14.9% → 14.0%) contracted slightly for a second consecutive year, reflecting a relative tightening in graduate recruitment across the finance and technology sectors in 2023–2024. The share of Teaching/Lecturer roles, by contrast, has risen steadily from 4.2% (2021) to 7.0% (2024), corroborating the active science-to-teaching pathway noted in the School of Science data. These shifts, while small in absolute terms, largely track the broader Hong Kong employment market’s sectoral warmth during the same period.

School–function alignment is similarly stark: 59.3% of SENG graduates worked in Engineering and 24.9% in System Analysis & Programming; 30.7% of SBM graduates entered Banking/Finance, 25.0% did Administration/Management, and 19.3% went into Accounting/Audit; 29.4% of Science graduates entered Teaching and 12.9% worked in Research. The Academy of Interdisciplinary Studies (AIS) had the most ‘even’ distribution, with Administration/Management, Programming, Engineering, and Finance each claiming a share—in keeping with its interdisciplinary training ethos. See Academy of Interdisciplinary Studies for the school overview.

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# 6. Starting Pay: A Three-Way Split

Pulling together the previous three sections, HKUST undergraduate starting pay is not a single figure but is differentiated along three axes:

• By School: AIS (mean HK$35,720) > SBM (HK$30,821) > SENG (HK$25,679) > SHSS (HK$23,801) > SSCI (HK$23,112).
• By Industry: Commerce & Business (HK$29,721) ≈ Government (HK$29,094) > Engineering & Industry (HK$24,212) ≈ Education (HK$24,140) ≈ Social Services (HK$24,106).
• By Job Function: Banking/Finance (HK$43,154) in a league of its own > Programming (HK$27,629) > Administration/Management (HK$26,032) > Engineering (HK$25,267) > Accounting/Audit (HK$20,211).

Superimposing the three axes, the highest-starting-salary combination is usually a ‘SBM/AIS graduate + Commerce & Business sector + Banking/Finance role’, while a Science graduate entering the Education sector in a teaching role sits at the lower end of the distribution. This also explains why HKUST’s overall annual salary sits in the middle of the eight-institution pack (see Section 1 cross-institutional table), even as its top-end finance and technology graduates are fully competitive in the market with peers from the more humanities- and business-skewed HKU and CUHK—the difference owes more to the programme mix than to quality of training. For a cross-institutional comparison of tuition fees and return on investment, see Tuition Economics & Eight Universities.

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# 7. Job-Search Outcomes: Number of Offers and Timing of Acceptance

Multiple offers are the norm. According to GES 2024 data^※, among 1,153 respondents, 49.5% held more than one offer, 22.6% held three or more, 7.7% held four or more, and another 1.2% received seven or more offers. To be precise: exactly one offer was held by 50.5%, two by 26.9%, and three by 14.9%. Compared with 2023, the ‘only one offer’ proportion rose from 39.2% to 50.5%, indicating a tighter job market that year where firms issued offers more cautiously.

Nearly half had secured a job before graduation. According to offer-timing data^※, as of June 2024 (i.e., around the time of graduation), 71.6% of job-seeking graduates had already received their first offer; the figure climbed to 90.3% by September and 93.8% by October. In short, the vast majority of HKUST graduates completed their employment matching within a month or two of leaving campus, with a comparatively short job-search cycle.

Reading offer numbers and employment rates together reveals the undertone of the 2024 market: on one hand, nearly half held multiple offers and nine in ten were settled within a month or two of graduation, showing that the market demand for an HKUST degree remains robust. On the other hand, the ‘only one offer’ share surged by over 11 percentage points year on year, and the full-time employment rate fell 6.1 pp, indicating that campus recruitment was more cautious and selective. These two signals are not contradictory—together they sketch a 2024 employment environment of ‘demand persists, but is more choosey’, which also explains why more graduates opted to continue their studies and bide their time.

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# 8. Work Location: Predominantly Hong Kong, with a Small Minority Posted Abroad

According to GES 2024 work-location data^※, of the 1,161 full-time and self-employed graduates who reported a work location, 1,125 (96.9%) were based in Hong Kong, and only 36 (3.1%) were stationed outside Hong Kong—the latter principally in mainland China, Singapore, and the United States (6 persons each). Among those working in Hong Kong, 97.1% were not required to travel frequently on business; only 2.9% had frequent travel duties, mainly to mainland China, Singapore, Taiwan, and the US. On the whole, HKUST bachelor’s graduates’ employment radius is highly anchored in Hong Kong, with cross-border mobility being a minority pattern. This runs in parallel with the trend of expanding non-local enrolment; for background see Non-local Intake Expansion — from 20% to 40%.

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# 9. Internship Experience: Over Eighty Per Cent Have Internships

One leading indicator of employment outcomes is pre-graduation internship experience. According to GES 2024 internship data^※, among 1,946 respondents, 1,607 (82.6%) had undertaken an internship during their studies, while only 17.4% had none. Of the 1,310 who had completed full-time internships, 38.4% had done three or more, 28.1% had done two, and 33.5% had done one—multiple-internship profiles are quite common. The School of Business & Management (611 persons) and the School of Engineering (577 persons) were the two groups with the richest internship experience, while the School of Science had 322, with AIS and SHSS having relatively fewer. Of the 857 who had held part-time internships, 87.2% had completed between one and three stints, while roughly 13% had done four or more—part-time internships tend to be short-term attempts during term-time, complementing the full-time internships concentrated nearer graduation. This high internship participation is widely seen as a key factor underpinning HKUST graduates’ short job-search cycles and high multiple-offer rates: graduate employers value verifiable practical experience, and an internship coverage rate above 80% means the majority of HKUST graduates possess this credential at the point of application. For the design of general education and experiential elements in the curriculum, see Four-Year Curriculum & Common Core.

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# 10. Employer Reputation and Notable Recruiters

HKUST graduates enjoy strong market recognition among both local and international employers, particularly those from the School of Engineering (Computer Science, Electronic Engineering) and the School of Business & Management (Finance, Quantitative Analysis) in the technology and finance sectors. As discussed in the QS/USNews 2027 Deep-Dive^※, HKUST graduates have long ranked among the top globally in employer favour, providing stable support for the QS ‘Employer Reputation (15%) + Employment Outcomes (5%)’ indicators.

According to a Caixin Global (May 2026) report on the Hong Kong university market^※, the industry segments that primarily recruit HKUST students in Hong Kong include technology firms (both local and multinational), investment banking and asset management, management consulting, and public bodies and the government. The industry and job-function data in Sections 4 and 5 bear this out: banking and finance, technology and programming, and engineering are the three high-salary outlets absorbing HKUST graduates.

Note: HKUST’s Career Center public reports do not provide a full, sector-by-sector employer name list; more detailed programme-level employer information is collated in the appendices to each year’s survey report and can be consulted via the HKUST Career Center^※.

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# 11. Context: Enrolment Scale

Understanding the employment data requires a sense of the underlying student body. According to the latest HKUST Facts & Figures (December 2025)^※, the University currently has 11,765 undergraduate students, 8,710 postgraduate students, and 976 full-time faculty (all holding doctoral degrees). Among undergraduates, the School of Engineering (7,218) and the School of Business & Management (6,048) are the largest by headcount, followed by the School of Science (4,113)—this ‘business and engineering dominant’ structure corresponds neatly to the dominance of the Commerce & Business and Engineering & Industry employment sectors observed in the employment data above.

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# 12. Undergraduate vs Postgraduate Career Outcomes

Source: HKUST Annual Report 2023-2024^※

The three tiers reveal a clear pattern of ‘the higher the degree, the more likely direct employment and the less likely further progression to another degree (with the exception of PhDs, where a post-doc is itself an academic path)’: taught master’s graduates are employment-oriented, with over 80% directly employed; around a quarter of bachelor’s graduates go on to further study; and half of doctoral graduates proceed into academia.

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# 13. Archived GES Data

HKUST’s Career Center regularly publishes the annual survey reports, which typically comprise three documents: an Overall Survey Introduction, Survey Findings, and a Statistical Summary. Of these, the Survey Findings include eight appendices that break the data down to individual programme level: employment status, industry, job function, salary distribution, number of offers, timing of acceptance, and internship experience. To consult the full historical data, please visit the HKUST Career Center Graduate Employment Survey page^※ to access the relevant PDF reports.

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# Related Reading

• Tuition, Accommodation & Scholarships — The other half of the cost–benefit equation, beyond starting salaries.
• Tuition Economics & Eight Universities — A cross-institutional comparison of fees and returns.
• Non-local Intake Expansion — from 20% to 40% — The policy backdrop to the changing student-body composition.
• Schools Overview — The origin of the five schools’ academic positioning and employment divergence.
• QS/USNews 2027 Deep-Dive — A detailed look at the Employer Reputation and Employment Outcomes indicators.

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