Employers Project Salary Increases for Most New Graduates

Despite relatively flat hiring projections for the Class of 2026, new data offers some good news for those who do manage to get hired: Starting salaries are expected to rise for almost every major.

Earlier this month, the National Association of Colleges and Employers published its Winter 2026 Salary Survey. The findings, which are based on surveys of 150 employers from across the country, show that employers expect to raise starting salaries anywhere from 3.1 percent for engineering majors to 6.9 percent for computer science majors compared to last year’s projections.

In addition to computer science and engineering, average salaries are expected to increase for graduates with bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and statistics, business, agriculture and natural resources, and communications. Only one field—social sciences—saw a decline, from a projected annual salary of $67,316 last year to $66,155 this year.

“It’s overall good news,” Andrea Koncz, NACE’s senior research manager, told Inside Higher Ed. “Our employers tell us repeatedly that they value new college graduates—they need them for succession planning and to fill their talent pipelines.”

Although the rise of generative artificial intelligence has spurred reports about the decline of the once-booming job market for computer science majors, the NACE data suggests that employers still value entry-level workers with computer science degrees.

Computer science majors saw the biggest growth in starting salary projections, climbing from an annual salary of $76,251 last year to $81,535 this year—the highest salary among all disciplines. (Last year’s iteration of this survey projected computer science salaries would rise only about 2 percent.)

“That tells me they are in demand,” Koncz said. “Employers need to pay them in order to get them.”

Indeed, the report identified computer science as one of the most in-demand major fields a new graduate can have.

At least 60 percent of the employers who responded to NACE’s survey said they plan to hire new graduates with degrees in finance, mechanical engineering and computer science this year. More than half of employers said they plan to hire workers with accounting, business administration/management and electrical engineering degrees. And at least 40 percent of employers plan to hire new graduates with degrees in information sciences and systems, logistics and supply chain operations, marketing, and human resources.

The report also examined salary projections by job position. All of them saw growth compared to last year, save for environmental and conservation scientists, whose projected earnings fell from $79,875 to $72,628.

Physical scientists—including physicists, chemists, materials scientists and geologists—reported the highest annual projected salary of $82,766, a 10.2 percent increase since last year. Bachelor’s degree holders working in computer occupations, including as systems analysts, programmers, software developers and network specialists, had the second-highest projected salary: $82,194 this year compared to $75,362 last year.

Employers also projected annual salary bumps ranging from 1.5 percent to 12 percent for engineers, actuaries, mathematicians, statisticians, salespeople, financial specialists, business operations specialists, communications specialists and administrative personnel.

While the data is promising, these are still just projections, said Artem Gulish, senior federal policy adviser at Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce.

“Historically, some of the years that had the highest projected salary increases experienced economic downturn,” he said, citing the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2001 and the recession of 2008. “Projected higher salaries don’t necessarily mean that there will be a great job market for new college graduates in the next year or two.”

But what these numbers do suggest is that employers still value the skills of college-educated human workers, even as some tech leaders predict that AI will soon take over many entry-level white collar jobs.

“Employers may not be hiring as many new graduates right now,” Gulish said. “But they’re willing to pay up for the best.”