The 10 most in-demand bachelor’s degrees—No. 1 isn’t engineering

What bachelor’s degrees are most attractive to employers hiring recent graduates?

The Winter 2026 Salary Survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers, or NACE, collected responses from 150 member organizations from Oct. 8 through Nov. 30, 2025.

Here are the 10 most in-demand bachelor’s degrees, according to NACE’s report, along with the percent of responding firms that said they have plans to hire graduates with each degree from the class of 2026.

10. Human Resources: 40%

9. Marketing: 44%

8. Logistics/Supply Chain: 44.7%

7. Information Sciences and Systems: 48%

6. Electrical Engineering: 51.3%

5. Business Administration/Management: 58.7%

4. Accounting: 58.7%

3. Computer Science: 60%

2. Mechanical Engineering: 61.3%

1. Finance: 61.3%

Recent grads have faced challenges finding work in today’s low-hire job market. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows the U.S. economy only added 181,000 jobs in 2025, far lower than the 1.46 million added in 2024. And some companies are reining in entry-level hiring in particular.

This may be the toughest entry-level job market in five years, according to edtech company Cengage Group’s 2025 Graduate Employability Report. The report found only 30% of graduates were getting jobs in their field and more than 75% of employers reported hiring the same number or fewer entry-level employees in 2025 than the year prior.

But NACE’s report also found that annual base salary projections for 2026 college grads show an increase across nearly all major categories of study included in the survey.

Only social sciences show a projected decrease in starting salary from 2025. The rest — computer science; engineering; mathematics and statistics; business; agriculture and natural resources; and communications — all show increased projected starting salaries from last year.

Computer science, which has the highest overall average salary, for example, has a 2026 projection of $81,535, up 6.9% from $76,251 last year.

“We’re seeing that most employers anticipate upping their salaries, which is especially good news given that hiring is expected to be flat for the class of 2026,” NACE president and CEO Shawn VanDerziel said in a press release.

Starting salaries have a significant impact on workers’ pay further into their careers. An October National Bureau of Economics Research working paper found that each additional $1,000 students earn in their first job after graduating translates to another $700 in yearly earnings five years out from college.

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