The recent turmoil in the City and predictions of an impending recession have done little to inspire confidence in the job market, but the prospects for students leaving university this summer remain very good.

Graduate vacancies are at their highest for a decade. On campus, there has been intense competition between the UK's top employers to hire the best new talent. But which employers do final-year students aspire to work for? At the eleventh annual ceremony for The Times Graduate Recruitment Awards, held last week at the British Library in London, more than 250 graduate recruiters gathered to discover which recruiters had been named the graduate employers of choice for 2008.

The awards, based on the results of face-to-face interviews with more than 15,000 final-year students from universities across the UK, was conducted five weeks ago by High Fliers Research. And for the fifth year running the graduates voted the professional services company PricewaterhouseCoopers the most desirable recruiter.

The majority of the other awards are for the graduate employers of choice for popular career destinations, including accountancy, marketing and IT, as voted for by finalists seeking jobs within the sector.

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The consumer goods producer Procter & Gamble was the only company to be named a leading employer in two categories - winning both the marketing and the sales awards for the eighth consecutive year. Accenture was again named the top recruiter in consulting, an award it has held since 2000.

Britain's biggest retailer, Tesco, scooped the general management award from last year's top choice, Aldi, but Marks & Spencer retained the graduate employer of choice title for retail. M&S fared less well in the human resources sector, losing out to Europe's largest employer, the NHS.

Students interested in technology careers voted IBM the top employer in the IT sector, ahead of Microsoft and Google, and the pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline was No 1 for research and development for the sixth time.

Engineering remains one of the most competitive areas in graduate recruitment, with more than 300 different employers vying to recruit engineering graduates this year. The aero-engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce took the sector's employer of choice award, beating the 2007 winner, Shell, into second place.

Despite the uncertainty surrounding jobs in the City, investment banking continues to be a popular choice for university-leavers and Goldman Sachs was named the Square Mile's top graduate employer for an unprecedented eleventh year. HSBC was in first place for those interested in other areas of finance and PricewaterhouseCoopers won the award for the accountancy sector for the fifth time.

Clifford Chance regained the award for the top law firm from rivals Linklaters who were forced into third place behind Allen & Overy, this year's runner-up. Savills, the upmarket estate agents, won the prize for best property employer for a second year.

For five of the past six years, the media has been the top careers destination for new graduates and the BBC has been the runaway employer of choice within the sector. For the 2008 awards, the corporation again won the media category, polling more than 90 per cent of students' votes. Transport for London was the leading recruiter for transport and logistics jobs and the Civil Service, best-known for its Fast Stream programme, was the top-rated public sector employer.

Accenture won the award for the best graduate recruitment brochure for the third year running; the investment bank JPMorgan was judged to have had the best graduate recruitment website; and the leading advert in 2008 was from the engineering consultants Arup.

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

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