Skip to content

2024-2025 Edition

THE EARLY CAREER INDEX REPORT

Salary Benchmarking for Entry-Level
Jobs & Internships

Setting competitive, yet fair-market salaries can be a challenge for any university recruitment professional, especially as the industry standards can vary year-over-year. 

Our latest report, compiled from thousands of early career role openings provides insight into what the standard is today, and where to set the proper salary for entry level roles for the most in-demand job titles, roles & functions in 2024.

Salary Benchmarking
 

Understanding Competitive Compensation: The Early Career Index Salary Benchmarking Report 

Available to purchase for $250.00 USD*
 Now
free of charge for RippleMatch Customers & the University Recruitment Community!

 RIPPLEMATCH EXCLUSIVE CONTENT  

Get your copy by reaching out to your RippleMatch Account Manager or submit the form below.

Report Purchase Price: $250
For the UR Community: Free

What you'll find inside:

Full-time and intern compensation percentiles for highly in-demand roles & business functions.

Overview of compensation trends for early career hiring.

Minimum compensation expectations from nearly 50 common academic majors.

Pay variance by location and job function.

... and much more!

*Price does not include additional taxes, fees, or charges, which may vary depending on your location. Final price may be subject to applicable taxes at checkout. 
By purchasing, you agree to pay the listed price plus any applicable taxes or fees . For any questions or issues, email us marketing@ripplematch.com.

Salary Report Pages

About the Early Career Index Report:

In todayโ€™s talent landscape, offering a competitive salary is essential for attracting and retaining the next generation. But determining where to accurately set your compensation for early career talent isnโ€™t easy.

To help inform the appropriate compensation bands, RippleMatch has published our comprehensive Salary Index Report, which includes pay ranges for 20+ business functions as well as salary preferences from nearly 20,000 Gen Z job seekers.

Collected from active job & internship listings between August 1, 2023 - April 1st, 2024, this data provides up-to-date information on how companies with competitive early career programs are planning to compensate their interns and entry-level hires.

Know exactly what today's standard is for each of your early career roles and set it correctly from the start. Fill out the form to purchase the report, or reach out to your account manager to get your copy for free!

Not a RippleMatch partner yet? Interested in learning more? Let's chat... 


List of Business Functions Analyzed:

๐Ÿ–ฅ๏ธ Software Engineering

๐Ÿ”ฌ Research & Development

๐Ÿญ Manufacturing Engineering

๐Ÿ”ง Mechanical Engineering

โšก Electrical Engineering

๐Ÿ› ๏ธ Hardware Engineering

๐Ÿ“ General Engineering

๐Ÿ’ป Information Technology (IT)

๐Ÿ›ก๏ธ Cybersecurity

๐Ÿ“ฆ Product Management

๐Ÿ“‹ Project Management

๐Ÿ“Š Data & Analytics

๐ŸŽจ Design & UX

๐Ÿ‘” Professional Services & Management

๐Ÿ”„ Operations

๐Ÿ’น Finance & Business Analysts

๐Ÿฆ Investment Banking

๐Ÿงพ Accounting

๐Ÿ”— Supply Chain

๐Ÿ’ผ Sales

๐Ÿ™‹โ€โ™€๏ธ HR & Recruiting

๐Ÿ“ˆ Marketing

๐Ÿ–‹๏ธ Content & Communications

โš–๏ธ Legal 

Data & Report Methodology:

The data analyzed in this report includes pay ranges, from over a thousand roles sourced from employer-posted roles on the RippleMatch platform. Each section includes salary projections and expectations from nearly 20,000 Gen Z job seekers, collected through candidate profile surveying. The data and report does not include bonuses, benefits packages, or any other additional compensation.

As pay ranges are standard for most job or internship postings โ€“ sharing both the maximum pay and minimum pay โ€“ the report reflects all these data points accordingly.

Since RippleMatch customers are among the top employers in the country with dedicated internship and entry-level programs, prioritizing attracting top early career talent into their organizations, many organizations tend to offer highly competitive pay for listed roles. In order to provide an accurate analysis, RippleMatch calculated the pay percentiles and mean for each maximum and minimum pay provided by employers for their roles in each function category.

Salaried roles are reflected as annual pay and intern pay is reflected as hourly pay as over 90% of all intern pay data collect was posted as hourly.

Roles are initially categorized into relevant functions when created on the RippleMatch platform, and each role was manually reviewed and audited by the RippleMatch editorial team to ensure the most accurate analysis. Some roles were discarded from the dataset when they did not fit clearly into one of the analyzed groups.

Since this report focuses exclusively on entry-level jobs & internships, roles with a mention of MBA, Masters, or PhDs were excluded from the dataset. Each role includes the sample size of the roles analyzed for full transparency of the dataset used. To provide additional context, each page includes references to role titles and industries represented in the analysis.

RippleMatch Helps Top Teams Hire Their Future