As a soon-to-be graduate engineer of the type you are talking about I am somewhat heartened to see that at least some of the "seasoned" engineers out there seem to be just as exasperated by the graduate job market as us newbies :-)
I have been keeping a good eye on a couple of aerospace job websites the last six months and can honestly say that with the exception of the big rolling recruiters (airbus, RR, BAe, Qinetiq) i can count on one hand the number of job opportunities I have seen that don't require a min. of 5 years experience in a similar field.
It seems that for new graduates who want to stay in aerospace there are very few options outside of going into the big manufacturing & design companies.