UK Job Market Report
29 April 2024
Adzuna has the most complete index of UK job vacancies covering all regions in the UK, based on every job vacancy advertised online in the UK from over 1,000 sources. This data is then normalised, de-duplicated, mix-adjusted and outliers are removed in real time to give an accurate, complete, up to the minute view of the job market. Our UK Job Market Report tracks advertised vacancies, average advertised salaries, competition for jobs, trending roles, time to fill positions, and more.
We also supply real-time data to the Number 10 Dashboard, the Cabinet Office and the Office for National Statistics’ labour market indices. For more granular data breakdowns at a local authority level, job title, or skill level, please contact our labour market intelligence division, Adzuna Intelligence.
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Vacancies
2024 continues to be a turbulent year for UK job hunters with advertised vacancies falling again to 862,294, down -0.46% monthly in March 2024 and -17.41% annually. This fifth consecutive monthly vacancy drop comes as the number of people out of work recently rose to 4.2%, the highest recorded in six months.
Jobs across PR, Advertising & Marketing were hit hardest, dropping by -11.09% in the past month, as companies are scaling back marketing spend. Meanwhile, in the aftermath of a prolonged housebuilding slump, Trade & Construction vacancies fell by -8.24%. This has left overall job figures down -17.41% compared to the same time last year.
That said, significant increases in several fast-growing sectors are helping to lessen the blow and mask these declines somewhat. Travel roles, for example, were up +16.27% in March, while Manufacturing vacancies rose by +6.09%, following news that companies are creating new manufacturing roles across the country – both lifting the month-on-month average.
Salaries
Average advertised salaries continue to rise, up +0.41% in March to £38,638, and up +2.95% annually. This is to be expected with wages often lagging behind labour market slack. However, there are early signs that wage growth is easing, as March’s annual growth isn’t as rapid as in February 2024 (+3.01%).
On the back of the modest increase in advertised salaries, transparency has equalised too. In March, 50% of job ads included salary details, while 50% did not.
Time to fill
It now takes companies 35.6 days to fill roles on average, down from 36.6 days last month. Teaching continues to be the sector with the shortest time to fill, at 31.7 days, followed by Admin, at 33.1 days. Meanwhile, Legal is the hardest to fill at 40.7 days.
Competition
Driven by the monthly drop in vacancies and the rising number of people out of work, there are now 1.87 jobseekers per vacancy, up from 1.49 last year and the highest figures since August 2021.
Hottest cities
For job hunters, the best cities to look for roles are Cambridge, Guildford and Exeter – the same three cities as last month. Cambridge has 7,449 vacancies and around 0.33 jobseekers for every role.
Bradford continues to be the most difficult city to find work, with 20,180 jobseekers competing for 2,624 jobs, which means there are around 7.69 jobseekers per role. This is followed by Rochdale (5.21) and Middlesbrough (4.12).
UK regions
Advertised vacancies jumped back up month-on-month in some regions in March 2024, led by Northern Ireland (+2.3%), Wales (+1.1%), and North West England (+0.98%).
In contrast, vacancies continued to fall in London (-1.4%), South West England (-0.9%), North East England (-0.6%), Scotland (-0.4%), Eastern England (-0.3%), East Midlands (-0.3%), and West Midlands (-0.1%).
For the fourth month running, the East Midlands is the fastest growing region for annual salary increases, up +6.48% to £35,940, compared to last year’s £33,754. Eastern England continues to post annual strong growth, up +5.71% to £37,387.
London’s advertised salaries continue to grow, too, up +1.92% this month following months of decline. Similarly, Northern Ireland appears to be bouncing back. Last month it was at the bottom of the table with +0.56% annual growth but this has since increased to +1.58%.
UK sectors
Over a third of sectors saw an increase in vacancies in March 2024, compared to February 2024. In addition to the monthly rises seen in Travel (+16.27%) and Manufacturing (+6.09%), Maintenance roles and Customer Services positions rose by +4.65% and +3.01% respectively.
Conversely, joining the PR, Advertising & Marketing (-11.09%), Graduate positions experienced a decline (-8.5%), followed by Trade & Construction (-8.24%), and Energy, Oil & Gas positions (-6.45%).
Year-on-year, Travel (+14.77%) and Teaching (+0.83%) were the only two sectors to see vacancies increase annually in March. Meanwhile the steepest annual declines were across Domestic Help & Cleaning (-46.13%) and Trade & Construction (-43.9%).
Given the overall rise in advertised salaries, most sectors also experienced monthly salary increases. Energy, Oil & Gas saw the largest monthly increase, +3.87%, as well as the largest annual increase, up +20.4%. Retail (+2.5%) and Social Work (+1.83%) also experienced monthly growth.
The biggest fall in monthly salary was in Travel, (-3.74%) – likely due to an increase in the range of roles at different levels. Legal (-0.51%), Property (-0.38%), Charity and Voluntary (-0.35%), and Trade & Construction (-0.11%) also saw monthly falls in salaries. On a more positive note, year over year, almost all sectors experienced a rise in advertised salaries, with Energy, Oil & Gas (+20.4%), Social work (+12.33%), and Manufacturing (+9.3%) leading the way. IT was the only sector to experience an annual fall in advertised salaries (-6.16%).
Legal jobs take the longest time to fill, at 40.7 days on average, followed by Energy, Oil & Gas (40.3) and Retail (39.0). Voluntary roles are filling fastest at just 29.6 days.
Trending jobs
Warehouse work has been the highest-trending job for almost a year, having spent 10 months at the top of the list.
Healthcare Support work was the second most searched-for role, the same as in January and February, followed by Administrator roles.
The data that Adzuna produce is an exceptionally rich and industry-leading source of real time insights into the labour market, local economies and what employers want. We’ve worked with the Adzuna team and their data across a range of projects, including labour market analysis, policy research and workforce planning and would highly recommend them.
Tony Wilson
Director
Institute for Employment Studies
Methodology
About Adzuna
Adzuna is a smarter, more transparent job search engine used by tens of millions of visitors per month. We love using the awesome power of technology to bring together every job in one place, help match people to better, more fulfilling jobs and keep Britain working.
Adzuna supplies real-time data to the Number 10 Dashboard, the Cabinet Office and Office for National Statistics labour market indices. In 2018, Adzuna won the contract to run Find a job, one of the British government’s most used online services.
Adzuna.co.uk was founded in 2011 by Andrew Hunter and Doug Monro, formerly of eBay, Gumtree, Qype and Zoopla and is backed by leading Venture Capital firms LocalGlobe, Index Ventures and Smedvig Capital.
We’ve spent a decade developing smarter, more transparent job search so jobseekers worldwide (we’re in 19 countries) can zero in on the right role faster.
About the Job Market Report
Adzuna has the most complete index of UK job vacancies covering all regions in the UK. The technology collects every job vacancy advertised online in the UK from over 1,000 sources. This data is then normalised, de-duplicated, mix-adjusted and outliers are removed in real time to give users an accurate, complete, up to the minute view of the job market.
Claimant count data is based on the latest Labour Market Statistics released by the ONS. The city areas referred to in this study are the top 50 cities in the UK, ranked by comparing the job vacancies in Adzuna’s comprehensive search index of over 1,000,000 live jobs to the number of claimants in each city from the latest ONS data. The full Jobseeker’s Allowance claimant count statistics are available for download here: www.nomisweb.co.uk.
The interest quotient for key roles is calculated by comparing how many views job postings for different occupations on Adzuna receive over a given month and comparing this to the overall job posting views over the same period. It provides a proxy for talent supply in the jobs market.
For more granular data breakdowns at a local authority level, job title, or skill level, please contact our labour market intelligence division, Adzuna Intelligence.