Job vacancies for students graduating this summer have fallen by almost a fifth – and most have already been filled, according to a new report.

Market research firm High Fliers said many employers started scaling back graduate recruitment plans a year ago, and half had downgraded their targets for this year.

A survey of 100 companies showed City jobs such as those in investment banking were worst hit, while the main increases were in the public sector. Two out of three employers said they had received “significantly” more applications from graduates and many had already filled all their vacancies.

A separate study of 1,000 final year student revealed widespread concern about their career prospects, with just 13% confident they would find a job they wanted.

Martin Birchall, managing director of High Fliers, says: “These swingeing cuts in graduate recruitment at Britain’s best known and most sought after employers are very bad news for anyone leaving university this summer.

“Not only have vacancies been reduced substantially for those finishing university in 2009, but it is now clear that many of last year’s entry-level jobs did not materialise either, leaving many graduates from the class of 2008 out of work too.”

A spokesman for the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills says: “Those going to university are investing in their future and will benefit over their lifetimes from higher education, particularly in years to come when there will be more highly skilled jobs, not less.

“But we recognise that graduates are not immune from the effects of the economic downturn which is why we are developing real help and support with new forthcoming schemes such as a national internship programme backed by leading employers.”

Meanwhile, a survey of over 1,000 final year university students by The Times found almost a half say that the present economic gloom and rapidly contracting graduate jobs market means that they will have to take “any job that they’re offered”.

A fifth say that they had been forced to apply to employers that they were not really interested in and nearly half said that they expected to begin work this summer on a lower salary than they had hoped for.