It’s been in the headlines. “The UK is facing a new graduate job crisis.” “1.2 million recent grads in the UK competed for just 17,000 open roles.” 

In 2024, the Institute of Student Employers recorded the highest number of applications for job since they started tracking the data in 1991. Why? 

Well, of course, everyone’s talking about AI. Recent research by Morgan Stanley revealed the UK is experiencing twice as many job losses due to AI as comparable economies. Not that it’s anything we haven’t seen before; my mum used to be a typist. Technological innovation impacts the job market, and entire job categories become extinct. 

Britain, in particular, has a knack for shutting down its industries. Recently, UK car production and cement production have fallen to levels not seen since before ‘Mr Sandman’ was first recorded by the Chordettes, and we all know what’s happened to steel and pottery, to the railways and the mines. If we keep shipping our industries abroad to expand our profit margins, the UK job market is going to continue to suffer. 

I’m complaining because I spent three years as the only girl in classrooms that smelt of BO - learning about EQ, acoustics and phase relationships - just to find there are absolutely zero music studio jobs. And I’m one of the lucky ones. I was offered work at the best studio in my city (as a freelance engineer who has to find their own clients, rather than on a salary) and, since then, have worked at Abbey Road, only to be told by the senior engineers that the pathway they walked in their youth doesn’t exist anymore. Why are there so many sound engineering and music production degrees, when there are barely any jobs for studio engineers? 

Yes, people are recording more from their bedrooms now, and yes, streaming has obliterated income from record-making, but I think there’s also an answer in that universities are there to make a profit, and if there’s demand for their courses, they’ll accept as many students as they can, without really caring if there are jobs in what people are studying. After all, they have a duty of care to look after students during their degree, but no responsibility for their graduates. 

Has anyone checked on the mental health of the nearly one million young people out of work?

The music industry is especially difficult to navigate. Everyone reading this knows we function primarily as a ‘gig economy’, and most of us give paid work to people that we already know, to do jobs we don’t advertise. As an independent artist, I do this too, booking session musicians, photographers and engineers I’ve already worked with. A culture like that that doesn’t breed an industry that’s held accountable, and made accessible for people without profitable connections. 

It’s especially difficult for people from working class background. People like me, whose parent(s) don’t have powerful purses. The Youth Music report, ‘A Blueprint for the Future’, found that social class was the biggest barrier to young people being able to earn money through music. 

Since I graduated, I’ve moved back in with my family in order to save money. This enabled me to make a loss on many of my gigs last year (so that I could pay videographers and my bandmates), as well as go on a musical pilgrimage to New Orleans, where I got lots of time to improve at the sax and sit-in with some excellent musicians at historical venues. I haven’t always been as lucky as this, and am very open about my experience of homelessness. 

But I’ve been thinking a lot about my future. Is it pissing money up the wall for me to continue investing in my music? Instead, could I save up enough to buy a very modest property in Stoke on-Trent? Do I ever want kids? Could I even afford them? 

A question I’ve heard my friends asking themselves is: How can everything I’ve overcome have brought me here? One of my friends beat cancer - literal, stage 4 cancer - before completing their degree, and has since spent three years looking for a salary. 

Seeing as this industry is about connections, if any of you are friends with the likes of Jools Holland or others, please inform them that I’m a great saxophonist. I’d love a seat in their band, and don’t know why they only ever platform middle-aged men. Likewise, if any of you think you can find me a studio job with a salary - even on a remote island - feel free to get in touch. 

Love and blessings, 

Sambambo 

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