The problem is those figures are in the past.

Since then there has been an economic depression – added to which difficulties in protecting intellectual property mean that a lot of value provided by this has also permanently disappeared, as well as a crisis in the financial industry. Globalisation means UK graduates are often competing for work and salaries with even cleverer more hardworking folk from overseas who will do the same job for half the cost – and in our country management of medium size companies is shit so a lot of good talent and ideas never get anywhere and older managers who rose to the top are willing to smash the ladder that the youths would climb in favour of using cheap foreign labour.

A very clever friend of mine who works in a senior engineering role for a large telecoms company mentions that with current UK fees and less opportunities, for many engieering subjects it makes more sense to emigrate to another EU country such as NL or DE or DK (you have to learn their language of course) and attend University there, as this is where the real opportunities for younger folk are.