When people want to work for you, it shows. For a fourth consecutive year university finalists have voted PricewaterhouseCoopers, a professional services firm, as the Graduate Employer of the Year.

The announcement came at the annual ceremony for The Times Graduate Recruitment Awards, held last week at the British Library in London.

Two employers won more than one category — Marks & Spencer was the employer of choice for retailing and human resources, while Procter & Gamble, the consumer goods company, won the marketing and sales awards.

IBM was again named the leading recruiter in IT and Accenture retained the top rating for the consulting sector. The engineering sector was won for a second year by the oil company Shell and students interested in research and development voted pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline their No 1 employer.

Aldi, a supermarket chain, scooped the general management award from last year’s winners the NHS and Linklaters ousted Clifford Chance as the preferred law firm. The accountancy sector was again dominated by the Big Four professional services firms, led by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The BBC was a runaway winner in the media category with more than 90 per cent of students’ votes.

HSBC was named the employer of choice for finance jobs for the third year running and Goldman Sachs was again the top choice for those interested in working for an investment bank.

There were three new categories in this year’s awards — Savills won the prize for best property employer, Transport for London was the leading recruiter for transport and logistics jobs and the Civil Service was the top-rated public sector employer.

Accenture won the awards for the best graduate recruitment brochure and advertising campaigns and Watson Wyatt, the actuarial firm, was judged to have had the best graduate recruitment website in 2007.

The awards are based on the results of face-to-face interviews with more than 17,000 final-year university students, conducted six weeks ago by High Fliers Research.

Students who had applied for jobs in 17 sectors were asked which organisations in the sector they most wanted to work for. Finalists did not choose from lists of employers — responses were unprompted. For the Graduate Employer of the Year 2007 award, the final-year students were asked “Which employer do you think offers the best opportunities for graduates?”

Awards for the best graduate recruitment website, brochure and advertising, were judged by focus groups involving more than 1,000 final-year student job hunters reviewing the recruitment literature and online information from 40 major employers.

With graduate vacancies running at a ten-year high and fierce competition between the UK’s top employers to hire the best new talent, the prospects for those leaving university this year look good.

Martin Birchall is editor of The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers

And the winners are...

Graduate Employer of the Year: PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)

Employers of choice by sector: Accountancy — PwC, Consulting — Accenture, Engineering — Shell, Finance — HSBC, General Management — Aldi, Investment banking — Goldman Sachs, IT — IBM, Law — Linklaters, Marketing — Procter & Gamble, Media — BBC, Property — Savills, Public Sector — Civil Service Fast Stream, R&D — GlaxoSmithKline, Retail — Marks & Spencer, Sales — Procter & Gamble, Transport and Logistics — Transport for London

Best Graduate Recruitment Marketing: Brochure — Accenture, Website — Watson Wyatt, Advertisement — Accenture

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