Computer science graduates: the share of coders fell from 40 to 28 % in a year

Three indicators from one dataset.

• Share of CS graduates starting as coders or programmers: from 40 to 28 % in a year.
• Share of graduates in professional-level jobs: from over 60 to 50 % in two years.
• Junior developer hiring per LinkedIn and UK government data: down 27 % year on year.

The authors are careful about causality. They name several factors: a general cooling of the labour market, corporate caution after pandemic over-hiring, expensive capital. Generative AI may have amplified these processes, but the data does not prove a direct causal link. That matters: headlines such as 'AI killed juniors' run ahead of the evidence.

The mechanism the researchers describe works like this: generative models cover the typical tasks of beginner developers, boilerplate code, tests, simple interfaces. Those tasks used to be the training ground for newcomers. Companies hire fewer juniors not because models replaced engineers but because the work on which engineers grew has disappeared.

For graduates: value shifts from writing code to framing tasks, checking results and integrating systems. For companies: if the bottom step is gone, build your own with mentored internships on real tasks, or in five years there will be nobody to hire at middle level. For education: teach working with models as a tool rather than banning them.

The UK data records a drop in entry into the profession, not the death of the profession. AI is one factor, not a proven cause. The market is rebuilding its bottom step, and those who build it themselves win.