that of a future conditioned by AI

In a labor market as competitive as the current one, aggravated by the condition of the imminent arrival of AI, it is increasingly important refine the choice of a university degree that facilitates job placement with good salaries and stable work.

According to the report ‘The employability of young people in Spain 2025’ from the Knowledge and Development Foundation (CYD), three careers stand out in terms of employability in the following four years after finishing their studies: Computer Science, Health and Engineering.

Having a university degree is useful for finding a job. According the data According to the report, in the 2018-2019 academic year, 189,438 people graduated from Spanish universities. Four years later, 75.9% of those graduates are affiliated with Social Security.

Of that percentage that has found a job, 72.4% do so with an indefinite contract with an average salary contribution base of 30,976 euros. 80% carry out their work full-time, which are clear indicators of stable employment with remuneration above average in Spain.

Graduates from public and private universities maintain differences, with private universities showing more permanent contracts in the first years, although in the fourth year the public university slightly surpasses them in stability.

The champion in job placement. Following the same trend that eol already pointed out 2024 employability report from the CYD Foundation, IT once again consolidates itself as the most solid career in terms of stability and quality of employment four years after its completion. With an affiliation rate of 89.4% and an impressive 93.8% of permanent contracts (96.9% of them full-time), it is presented as the career that presents the greatest guarantees of obtaining stable employment in 2025.

With 82.8% employability and 90.5% permanent contracts, we find the branches of Engineering, Industry and Construction, thus demonstrating the high demand for technical professionals what companies demand.

It is worth highlighting at this point the Medicine career, which, although it registers a higher percentage of job insertion than Computer Science (94%) and has a higher salary contribution base, shows serious precariousness in hiring. Only 2% of graduates have a permanent employment contract after four years in the labor market.

Salaries above average. As we mentioned in the previous section, the average salary contribution for Medicine graduates is 41,839 euros per year. Far exceeding the 36,732 euros per year that the average IT graduates pay in their fourth year in the labor market or the 33,215 euros per year that the rest of the computer, industrial and construction engineering majors pay.

The red lanterns. As already reflected by the 2024 study datathe careers in the Arts and Humanities branch are the ones that offer the fewest professional opportunities with an average affiliation rate of 63.5%, of which only 73% do so with an indefinite contract and with an average contribution base of 27,185 euros per year. Well below their counterparts in Medicine and IT.

The Education and Services branches are not faring better, with insertion rates below 80%, salary bases below 30,000 euros and greater uncertainty in job stability.

Present use. If we compare the data from the 2024 study with that of 2025, we find an increase of 10 percentage points in the number of graduates with a permanent contract.

This indicates that the work that has been generated is of better quality, but it must also be observed in a context of overall employment growth throughout the labor market, not just in that of graduates with higher education. That is to say, not only have the number of graduates with indefinite contracts increased, but, according to data From the EPA for the third quarter of 2025, full-time employment as a whole has increased by 314,500 people and partial employment has decreased by 196,100 people.

Future employment. Despite the good data that graduates in Computer Science and Engineering have been presenting, the progressive arrival of AI to the labor market places them as the professions more exposed to automation. This means that, if a student begins one of these careers now, in eight years (four years of undergraduate plus the four years of job placement proposed by the study), the scenario could be totally different.

In fact, Engineering is the one that is most accusing layoffs in big technology in the United States, the market in which AI is being deployed with greater intensity.

At the opposite pole, the progressive aging of the population will further increase demand of professionals from field of health and serviceschanging the balances of the labor market and its salaries.

In Xataka | For thousands of Spanish students, the challenge is not to pass the PAU and access university: it is to find a job of their own

Image | Flickr (University of Seville)