For anyone in their final year at university, May can be a stressful month. The last round of exams looms large and there are just a few weeks before student days come to an end and — assuming all goes well — life as a graduate begins.

But when it comes to careers, the Class of 2007 is in buoyant mood. According to research to be published next week by High Fliers Research, record numbers of this year’s finalists have made applications for places on graduate schemes. The UK Graduate Careers Survey 2007 shows that almost three quarters of this year’s graduates expect to find work or start a postgraduate course after university.

The most popular destinations are careers in the media and teaching, although by the time the survey took place in February more finalists had applied for jobs in investment banking and accountancy than any other area. Nearly a quarter of students who applied early for graduate jobs had already received a confirmed job offer.

Finalists’ main priorities for their first job are having the opportunity to train for a professional qualification and a healthy work-life balance. A third said it was very important to them that they never had to work evenings or weekends. A similar number said they were keen to use the degree subject they’d studied.

Pay is an important factor and the study reveals that salary expectations are higher than ever. This year’s finalists expect to earn an average of £21,700 when they start work this autumn, more than 7 per cent higher than in 2006. And the top 4 per cent of students think they’ll be paid upwards of £35,000 after graduation.

For many finalists, the location of a first job is an important consideration and, once again, new graduates are especially keen to work in London — 48 per cent of students hope to work within or close to the M25. The next most popular destinations are the North West of England, the Midlands and Scotland, while just 1 per cent of graduates want to work in East Anglia.

Asked about the future, only half of this year’s finalists thought they’d stay with their first employer for more than two years and just one in six believed that they would stay for five years or longer. By this point graduates hoped to be earning an average of £38,700 and a fifth thought they’d be on at least £50,000 a year.

Less than 60 per cent of the class of 2007 expect to be married by the age of 30 and just 35 per cent think they’ll have started a family. Travel, however, seems to be on most graduates’ agendas — more than half aspire to live and work abroad and 45 per cent say they’ll have holidayed in at least ten different countries by the time they’re 30. Property is a key concern: three quarters expect to own a house or flat within ten years of leaving university and 12 per cent plan to invest in a buy-to-let or holiday property by then too.

The facts

45 per cent of final year students want to work for a large national or international company.

19 per cent of finalists plan to join a small or medium-sized firm.

14 per cent want to join the public sector.

They expect to leave university with average total debts of £10,900.

12 per cent of this year’s graduates expect to earn at least £100,000 by the age of 30.

Martin Birchall is managing director of High Fliers Research and editor of The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers.

The UK Graduate Careers Survey is based on interviews with more than 17,000 final-year students and is published on May 8. For a free summary of the key findings, please e-mail surveys@highfliers.co.uk

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