If you're at university or have graduated recently then the chances are you’ll have seen the recruitment campaigns for trainee accountants on campus.

Vacancies in the sector have shot up by more than 80 per cent since 2004 and three of the big four professional services firms are looking to hire at least 1,000 graduates in the 2007-08 recruitment round.

It's no surprise then that these firms dominate the new league table of Britain’s top graduate employers published today. The 2007 edition of The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers has been compiled from interviews conducted by High Fliers Research with more than 17,000 new graduates who left university this summer. For the fourth consecutive year PricewaterhouseCoopers has been voted the employer that offers the best opportunities for graduates. Deloitte and KPMG are ranked second and third for the second year running.

The Civil Service, BBC and NHS are unchanged in fourth, fifth and sixth places, but Accenture, the consulting firm, has moved up a place to seventh, overtaking HSBC which slips back a place. The retailer Aldi — which in 2008 is offering new graduates starting salaries of £39,000 — has been ranked in the top ten for the first time at ninth, continuing its rapid rise since entering the Top 100 in 65th place in 2002. The highest-ranking investment bank is Goldman Sachs, which is tenth for a second year.

Elsewhere in the top 20 there have been significant changes. Teach First — the scheme that recruits talented graduates into teaching before embarking on careers in other areas — achieves its highest ranking to date in 14th place. But Procter & Gamble, the consumer goods company, drops six places to 15th position, leaving the top ten rankings for the first time while the Army drops a further five places to 18th. Marks & Spencer climbs five places to rejoin the top 20 in 17th place and UBS, the investment bank, jumps from outside last year’s top thirty to 20th. Both IBM and JP Morgan have left the top 20.

The three highest climbers this year are Pfizer, which has jumped 30 places, reversing a similar fall last year, Barclays Capital moves into the top 50 with a climb of 27 places, and the information and media group Bloomberg is up 24 places to 56th position. Heading in the wrong direction, the biggest falls of the year in the table are for the drinks company Diageo, down 33 places, Alliance Boots drops 29 places and Cadbury Schweppes and the Royal Navy both fall 20 places.

There are 11 new entries in this year’s Top 100, the highest being for BDO Stoy Hayward, the accounting and professional servics firm in 74th place. The GE corporation apears in 81st place, the energy group npower joins the list in 87th place, just ahead of Maersk, the shipping group, Transport for London and the construction firm Faber Maunsell. There are further new entries for the consultants Capgemini and the Co-operative Group. Three employers return to the league table — the investment bank ABN AMRO, MI5 — The Security Service and Norton Rose, a law firm.

Among the organisations leaving the Top 100 in 2007 is QinetiQ, the defence employer — which was ranked inside last year’s top fifty — and the Ministry of Defence and Dstl. Data Connection, one of the highest climbers last year, has left the list, as have Siemens, Airbus and Sony. Four of last year’s new entries failed to retain their places — Virgin, Grant Thornton, the Nationwide Building Society and the Government Legal Service.

Martin Birchall is editor of The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers

Times Recommends

• Inspirational leadership
• How to get a new job
• The reluctant CEO