UK Job Market Report
24 November 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
UK vacancies fell to their lowest levels since 2021 last month – down –3.61% month-on-month and -7.36% annually to 796,385 jobs.
Ahead of November’s Autumn Budget, businesses have stalled hiring plans, causing the vacancy numbers to fall below 800,000 for the first time since March 2021. This follows ONS data that shows UK unemployment is up from last quarter, at 5%, the highest level since 2020.
Salaries
While vacancies fall, salaries continue to grow. The average advertised salary rose to £42,531 in October – a +0.27% month-on-month lift and up +8.4% year-on-year. This means wage growth continues to outpace inflation (3.6%) and is particularly strong in the public sector – which saw +6.6% growth compared to the private sector’s +4.2% – as well as across Wales, where annual wages rose +12.59% in October.
There were also positive signals when it comes to salary transparency. For the first month since July, the number of UK job ads with salary details listed rose in October – up to 46.3%. This still means more than half (53.7%) of all listings fail to include pay details, but it’s a step in the right direction.
Time to fill
The average time to fill a role sat at 36.5 days, same as the previous month.
Competition
Competition for roles reached a 4-year high, as the jobseekers per vacancy ratio climbs to its highest level since May 2021, at 2.12 jobseekers per available role.
Hottest cities
Cambridge remains the top city for job hunters, with the lowest jobseeker to available roles ratio at 0.4, with 6,511 roles available. Guildford comes second with 0.56 and Oxford third with 0.65.
The hardest city to find a role is Bradford, with 8.67 jobseekers per role, followed by Birmingham (5.47) and Luton (5.31).
UK regions
Vacancies fell in every part of the UK in October with the steepest monthly, and annual declines seen in Wales (-9.13% MoM; -15.34% YoY) and Scotland (-5.66% MoM; -10.72% YoY). Notably, these are the regions which also saw the greatest increases in average salary, with pay rising +12.59% in Wales and +9.92% in Scotland.
London remains the highest-paying region in the UK, with average advertised salaries of £48,974, and the only region above the national average of £42,531. As a result, London continues to exert a strong upward pull on the overall figure, lifting the national average beyond what is being seen across the rest of the country.
UK sectors
Retail and Logistics roles continued to be buoyed by seasonal hiring, with vacancies up +11.7% and +7.62% month-on-month. This was beaten only by Domestic & Cleaning, with vacancies rising +27.2% in just a single month, with Travel (+7.6%) rounding out the top three.
After consistently topping the list of the worst-performing sectors for vacancies, Healthcare also rebounded in October. Advertised roles only fell by -0.85% – a marked improvement on the -34.8% decline seen over the past six months. However, even with this rebound, vacancies are still down -21.32% annually, suggesting there is a long way to go.
Conversely, the biggest monthly declines were then seen in Customer Services (-2.9%), HR (-2.09%), Consultancy (–2.05%), followed by Sales (–1.8%) and Legal (–1.7%).
Conditions haven’t improved much for early-career workers either. Graduate jobs continued to fall in October, down -1.5% month-on-month to 13,541 jobs. This means they’re now -40.9% lower than October 2024. Average graduate pay held steady at £25,999, up +0.4% month-on-month and +3.6% higher than a year ago, and entry-level jobs generally grew +2.2% to 203,792. They now make up 26.43% of the total UK jobs market.
On the pay side, annual advertised salary growth remained positive across most sectors, with the strongest increases in Logistics & Warehouse (+16.59%), IT (+11.9%) and Domestic & Cleaning (+10.47%). Travel was the only major sector to see an annual salary decline, down -0.6%.
When it comes to hiring speed, Admin (31.1 days) and Legal (31.7 days) roles continued to fill faster than the national average of 36.5 days. In contrast, hiring took the longest in Teaching (44.5 days), Healthcare & Nursing (39.6 days), IT (38.0 days) and Energy, Oil & Gas (36.9 days), suggesting ongoing recruitment challenges in education, healthcare and tech fields.
Trending jobs
Warehouse Worker retained its position as the UK’s most searched-for role in October, according to Adzuna’s Trending Jobs rankings. Cleaner climbed into second place, overtaking Healthcare Assistant, which slipped to fifth. Healthcare Support Worker also rose sharply to take third, while Social Care Worker held steady in fourth.
Further down the list, Sales Assistant and Project Manager maintained consistent interest, holding mid-table as they have for consecutive months. Kitchen Assistant re-entered the top ten after not appearing since January. It sat in ninth place, suggesting renewed seasonal demand ahead of the winter period, while Manager held steady in tenth place.
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.