What bachelor’s degrees are most attractive to employers hiring new graduates?
The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) Winter 2026 Salary Survey collected responses from 150 member organizations between October 8 and November 30, 2025.
According to the NACE report, below are the 10 most in-demand bachelor’s degrees and the percentage of responding companies that say they plan to hire graduates of each degree starting in 2026.
10. Human resources: 40%
9. Marketing: 44%
8. Logistics/Supply Chain: 44.7%
7. Information Science and Systems: 48%
6. Electrical Engineering: 51.3%
5. Business administration/management: 58.7%
4. Accounting: 58.7%
3. Computer Science: 60%
2. Mechanical Engineering: 61.3%
1. Finance: 61.3%
Recent graduates face difficulty finding work in today’s low-hiring job market. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. economy will add just 181,000 jobs in 2025, far less than the 1.46 million jobs added in 2024. Additionally, some companies are holding back on hiring, especially at entry-level positions.
This could be the toughest entry-level job market in five years, according to edtech company Cengage Group’s 2025 Graduate Employability Report. The report found that only 30% of graduates are employed in their field, and more than 75% of employers reported hiring the same or fewer entry-level employees in 2025 than the previous year.
However, the NACE report also found that projected annual base salaries for college graduates in 2026 show increases in nearly every major academic field included in the study.
Only the social sciences are predicted to see a decline in starting salaries starting in 2025. The rest is computer science. Engineering; Mathematics and Statistics. Work; Agriculture and Natural Resources. and communications departments both show starting salary expectations have increased over last year.
For example, computer science, which has the highest overall average salary, is projected to earn $81,535 in 2026, an increase of 6.9% from last year’s $76,251.
“We know that most employers are expecting salary increases, which is especially good news given that hiring for the Class of 2026 is expected to be flat,” NACE President and CEO Sean Vanderzeel said in a press release.
Starting salary has a significant impact on an employee’s salary later in their career. A National Bureau of Economic Research report released in October found that for every $1,000 students earn in their first job after graduation, they earn an additional $700 a year five years after graduating from college.
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