I've been in work for 2 years out of uni, and am in the (slow/painful) process of buying currently. Mainly because I've now been offered a job that keeps me in one area for 5-6 years, throwing money into a mortgage at least will feel like I should see some of it back.
The people we're buying from actually thought we were just time wasters given our age and the property we're buying. But we'd just been sensible for a couple of years and each saved a good chunk of our wages for 18 months, created and put in max amounts each month into a HTB ISA and by that stage we had enough deposit for any property limited by the HTB ISA ceiling.
Not sure how confident I am that I'll see any increase in the house price over the 5-6 years I'll have it, but over that period it would cost me around £50,000-£60,000 in rent so it seems a good decision either way.