Men could be losing out on good jobs by choosing tougher university subjects in which it is more difficult to achieve a top-class degree.

While more women are being awarded first class and 2:1 degrees than men in every subject, a report also shows that some students are more likely to achieve a top-class degree than others, despite having lower A-level scores.

According to research by the graduate careers magazine RealWorld and the recruitment consultancy Work, while 87 per cent of psychology students at Russell Group universities — the 19 leading bodies for research — achieve a 2:1 or first, only 63 per cent of maths students reach the same level, despite having markedly better A-level grades.

While high-scoring degrees such as psychology, English and media studies are dominated by female students, subjects such as maths, physics and chemistry, where it is harder to achieve top-class degrees, are dominated by male students.

Women make up 83 per cent of psychology courses and 76 per cent of English degrees, for example, while men account for 84 per cent of engineering students and 65 per cent of physics students.

The report’s authors insist that there are clear subject biases in degree marking and advise employers to look beyond the class of degree to the calibre of graduate when recruiting.

“Men are being doubly hit because more study the sciences and because of the subject bias in awarding degree classes, they’re doing less well,” Darius Norell, managing director of RealWorld, said. “The problem is that employers are comparing courses that were never designed to be compared. If I got a 2:2 in engineering from Cambridge, who’s to say that I’d not be mentally capable of doing a demanding job?”

Girls have consistently achieved higher overall A-level scores than boys but this report highlights that far from narrowing at university, that gap appears to be widening.

While 56 per cent of those who achieved three As or better at A level were female in 2005, of all the 2:1s and firsts awarded in the same year, 59 per cent went to women.

The problem comes at graduation, when to whittle down the numbers, employers ask only those achieving a 2:1 or better to apply. While 56 per cent of students achieve this class, not only does it not cut down on numbers, but is also an unfair assessment as it fails to measure a person’s other skills, Mr Norell said.

Carl Gilleard, chief executive of the Association of Graduate Recruiters, said that he always advised recruiters to look beyond the 2:1, as it told only part of the story. “It is a challenge to cut down the numbers but companies need to think carefully about what they’re looking for and build it into applications,” he said. “One of the weaknesses of the present system is the heads-down approach that degrees are only about getting a 2:1, when that is not the purpose of a university education at all.”

While many are using online skills tests to overcome the 2:1 discrepancy, Mr Gilleard said that employers must become more aware of “the journey travelled” by many graduates.

A spokesman for Universities UK, the umbrella group for vice-chancellors, said that the report was an oversimplification that ignored the reality of higher education in Britain. “Everyone who has the ability to benefit from higher education — not just young people — should be able to do so, and this is reflected in the huge range of courses offered by the UK’s universities,” he said.

“The Burgess Review on the classification of degree results, due to report this summer, will be looking at these issues in more detail.”

The report also found that six out of ten students come from the managerial classes.

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