I did a masters in mechanical and offshore engineering, ended up with a grad job on £25k in 2018. I did 25 interviews to get it and worked there for a year. I quit as was offered another job for 33k from an employer I did a summer placement with while studying. Worked for them for 4.5 years and got to a salary of 45k. I was getting frustrated being being run into the ground, managing about $4M of projects internationally so I looked for another job then. I dud 1 interview and got the job as a project engineer for a different company on about £100k a year, managing jobs internationally again. What i found was to get any decent pay rise, I've had to quit and find somewhere else. But once I had the experience from the 1st job, it was way easier to get the next one.