UK Job Market Report
22 December 2025
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.
Vacancies
The UK job market shrank for the fifth month in a row in November as vacancies fell -6.4% month-on-month to 745,448, as businesses adjust to the impact of the recent Autumn Budget.
After a run of rises at the start of 2025, the tide shifted in July and employers have remained cautious amid ongoing economic uncertainty. A series of sustained declines through the second half of the year has made 2025 one of the toughest years for job hunters in the past five years, especially for those entering the market for the first time.
Annual vacancies across the board fell -15.23% compared to November 2024, the sharpest drop this year, while entry-level roles specifically fell -24.7% annually, their lowest level since 2021.
Salaries
While inflation drops to 3.2%, wages continue to grow. Adzuna’s data shows the average UK salary rose +7.67% annually to £42,687 in November, up +0.37% on the month before. Annual public sector pay grew +7.6% compared to the private sector’s +3.9%. Regionally, Wales saw double-digit annual wage growth (+12.14%), a consistent trend since January.
After a rise in salary transparency in October gave a glimmer of optimism, the share of UK job ads including pay details edged back down again to 45.44%, meaning more than half of all listings still fail to disclose salary information.
Time to fill
The average time to fill a role fell to 35.9 days from 36.5 days in the previous month.
Competition
Competition for roles intensified to its highest level in more than four years, with 2.24 jobseekers now vying for every vacancy.
Hottest cities
Cambridge remains the top city for job hunters, with the lowest jobseeker to available roles ratio at 0.4, with 6,088 roles available. Guildford comes second with 0.56 and Oxford third with 0.66.
The hardest city to find a role is Bradford, with 9.61 jobseekers per role, followed by Luton (5.59) and Birmingham (5.5).
UK regions
Vacancies continued to fall across every part of the UK in November, marking the fifth consecutive month of nationwide decline. The sharpest drop was recorded in Yorkshire & The Humber, where vacancies fell -12.8% month-on-month, followed by the North West (-9.7%), the only region to see both a decline in vacancy numbers and wages in November.
In contrast to widespread vacancy declines, all regions experienced annual salary growth and only two regions saw wages dip slightly in November. These were the North West, where salaries dropped -0.39% compared to October, and the South East (-0.16%)
London remained the highest-paying part of the country, with average advertised salaries rising to £49,103 in November, keeping it as the only region with pay levels above the national average of £42,687. Wales and Scotland continued the salary growth seen in October, with wages in the two nations growing +12.14% and +9.55% annually.
UK sectors
November delivered a mixed picture across the UK’s job sectors, with some of the most dramatic monthly swings seen all year.
Graduate vacancies plummeted –17.9% monthly in November, leaving them -44.8% lower than a year ago, even though average graduate pay is up +2.8% year-on-year.
Entry-level jobs generally also continued to contract sharply, falling -14.5% monthly and down -24.7% on a year ago. The number of advertised entry-level jobs is now at its lowest since February 2021, which tracks with recent reports that show youth unemployment in Britain is accelerating at the fastest rate in the G7.
Sector-wise, the steepest monthly drop in vacancies was seen in Logistics & Warehouse roles, which fell -14.84% last month and now sit -33.8% lower than last year.
After a strong +11.77% jump in October, Retail roles also fell -5.61% monthly in November, which is -16.97% lower than a year ago. Healthcare & Nursing remains under pressure, with vacancies falling -6.52% in November to 33,725 – a continuation of the structural decline that has left the sector -32.52% smaller than a year ago. Hospitality & Catering showed a similar pattern, dropping –7.13% month-on-month and now -25.23% below last year’s levels.
More positively, Domestic & Cleaning continued to outperform the market by a substantial margin. Vacancies jumped +22.11% monthly in November and are now +47.14% above last year – the strongest sustained growth of any major sector.
On the pay side, advertised salaries rose across the majority of sectors. IT saw one of the strongest increases, with pay up +2.13% in November and +12.68% annually to £61,969, making it the best paid sector, on average, in the UK.
Logistics & Warehouse and Domestic & Cleaning also recorded double-digit annual pay growth at +13.30% and +13.63%, despite seeing smaller monthly increases (+0.32% and +2.28%). Meanwhile, Travel remained one of the few sectors experiencing an annual salary decline (-2.24%), alongside Energy, Oil and Gas where annual salaries fell -1.68%.
When it comes to hiring speed, the national average fell to 35.9 days with Admin and Legal roles filling the fastest at 31.4 days and 31.8 days, respectively. Retail roles take the longest to fill, around 40.2 days. This was followed by IT (39.5 days), Healthcare & Nursing (38.3 days) and Energy, Oil & Gas (37.5 days).
Trending jobs
Warehouse Worker remained firmly at the top of Adzuna’s Trending Jobs ranking in November, extending its lead for the fourth month in a row. Healthcare Support Worker climbed into second place, overtaking Cleaner, which slipped to third. Delivery Driver rose sharply, jumping from 7th in October to 4th in November, while Social Care Worker rounded out the top five, maintaining its long-running position among the UK’s most-searched roles.
Driver (10th) returned to the top 10 for the first time since August 2023, as did Lorry Driver (6th), which last appeared in May 2024. Both of which pushed out Healthcare Assistant and Kitchen Assistant. Project Manager, Sales Assistant and Manager again held consistent popularity across the month.
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.