TOP companies were attacked yesterday for failing to look for talent at most of the region’s universities, shutting graduates out of the chance of a job.

Most of the country’s leading 100 firms promote vacancies at only two North-East universities – Durham and Newcastle – a damning report by ex-Cabinet minister Alan Milburn found.

It means students at other institutions, including Teesside University, in Middlesbrough, the University of Sunderland and Northumbria University, in Newcastle, are not alerted to opportunities, or given advice on how to apply.

On average, the top 100 graduate employers, a list that includes KMPG, GlaxoSmithKline IBM, Tesco and Google, run recruitment programmes at only 19 “socially exclusive”

universities, it was revealed.

Furthermore, some of them give preference to degrees from those 19 – requiring a higher qualification for a successful application from anywhere else.

Launching his latest study on improving “social mobility”, former Darlington MP Mr Milburn said: “There are 115 universities. Professional employers need to dramatically widen their recruitment net.”

Pointing out that the favoured insistutions were the “most socially exclusive”, he added: “No one can tell me the pool of talent exists only at these universities.”

Mr Milburn also highlighted a stark geographical bias in the proportion of top employers with graduate vacancies in different regions of England.

Whereas 84 per cent of companies offered opportunities in London this year, that was true of only 44 per cent in the North-East and 47 per cent in Yorkshire.

Mr Milburn urged the private sector to copy the civil service, which had moved jobs out of the capital, saying: “Wages are cheaper and the people are available.”

In fact, the gloomy prediction was that the South of England would enjoy “more rapid employment growth” than the North in the years to come.

The study, titled Fair Access to Professional Careers, concluded: “It seems that regional disparities in access to a professional career are growing and are set to go on doing so.”

Overall, the former Labour MP warned that only limited progress was being made in prising open key professions – politics, medicine, the law and journalism – to all.

The proportions who attended fee-paying secondary schools stood at barristers (43 per cent), leading journalists (54 per cent), MPs (35 per cent) and medical graduates (22 per cent).

Mr Milburn said: “This is social engineering on a grand scale.

“The senior ranks of the professions are a closed shop.

If social mobility is to become anything other than a pipe dream they will have to open up.”

Employers should collect data on the socio-economic backgrounds of staff and select interns fairly, to avoid the wealthy simply getting a foot in the door.

Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, said he wanted Mr Milburn to “hold our feet to the fire”, saying: “I am delighted that he is shining a light on opening the doors to the professions.”