Spain's university graduates earn far less than EU peers, with 45% earning under €30k annually

Four years after graduation, Spanish university graduates from the class of 2019-2020 were earning an average of 32,218 euros gross annually—barely three-quarters of what their EU counterparts made, and only slightly above the national median wage. Just 76 percent had found work at all. Of those employed, 26 percent held temporary contracts. But the numbers grow starker when you look at the distribution: 45 percent of these young degree-holders earned less than 30,000 euros a year, and 27 percent made less than 24,000. These figures, drawn from Spain's Ministry of Education, paint a portrait of a labor market drowning in the wrong kind of talent.

Spain produces university graduates at a higher rate than the rest of Europe. More than half of Spaniards aged 25 to 34 hold a degree, compared to 44.8 percent across the EU. Yet the country simultaneously suffers from a shortage of people with only basic secondary education—24 percent of young Spaniards versus 13.4 percent in the broader bloc. The paradox dissolves once you examine what degrees students actually choose. Thirty percent of young Spanish workers with degrees consider themselves overqualified for their jobs, the worst rate in Europe and well above the EU average of 20 percent. The universities, it seems, are producing an excess of teachers, lawyers, historians, and sociologists armed with master's degrees and good intentions, only to release them into a job market with no use for them.

The choice of field matters enormously. Among the roughly 300,000 high school graduates taking Spain's university entrance exam this year, 37 percent will select degrees in fields with the poorest job prospects: education (11 percent), humanities and arts (13 percent), and social sciences (13 percent). Only 26 percent will choose from the most promising areas: health (11 percent), engineering (13 percent), and information technology (5 percent). Across the EU, the distribution inverts—31 percent choose humanities and social fields while 33 percent pursue science and engineering. In Germany, the gap widens further: 25 percent versus 38 percent. The economic logic behind Spain's imbalance is difficult to discern. In 2024, graduates in education earned an average of 30,573 euros annually, a figure that might suffice if not for the fact that 38 percent held temporary contracts, condemning many to cycles of precarious work punctuated by unemployment. Those with degrees in humanities averaged 28,259 euros; social sciences, 29,425. By contrast, graduates in health fields earned 36,204 euros on average; engineering, 35,054; and information technology, 37,533. More than 80 percent of graduates in these three fields had secured stable employment by their fourth year after graduation.

Joaquín Aldás, a researcher at the Valencian Institute of Economic Research and the BBVA Foundation, warns that the problem will not resolve quickly. Enrollment in high-employment fields has been declining for years. In 2012, more than 20 percent of high school graduates chose engineering; now fewer than 15 percent do. He identifies two explanations: one more speculative—a genuine shift in intellectual interests and career preferences among younger generations—and another more concrete: the explosion of private universities. Much of the growth in university enrollment over the past decade has come from private institutions, which tend to offer more places in humanities degrees than engineering, since engineering programs are costlier to run and generate lower financial returns. Medicine stands as a notable exception, thriving in private universities thanks to sustained demand.

Medicine, in fact, produces the highest average salaries for recent graduates outside military studies—44,153 euros annually in 2024—with an affiliation rate of nearly 94 percent, though temporary contracts account for roughly half of these positions due to public sector hiring practices. Computer engineering graduates follow closely at 43,495 euros annually. Property protection fields like criminology and security sciences average 39,371 euros, though with a much lower affiliation rate of 47 percent. Industrial organization engineering rounds out the top tier at 39,188 euros. At the opposite end, the lowest-paid degrees are speech pathology at 23,906 euros annually, archaeology at 24,249 euros, fine arts at 24,635 euros, and conservation and restoration at 24,781 euros. These disparities will confront every student now sitting for the university entrance exams that will determine which degrees remain available to them.