UK Job Market Report
26 January 2026
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
Vacancies in December fell -3.84% month-on-month to 716,791 jobs, marking the sixth consecutive monthly fall and pushing competition for roles to its highest level in more than four years. Vacancies fell -15.09% below December 2024’s levels and represented the lowest average vacancy levels of any full year since 2020, making it one of the worst years for jobseekers since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Salaries
The average UK salary rose +6.77% annually to £42,991 in December, up +0.71% on the month before. This means annual salaries have been growing steadily for a record 43 months, since May 2022.
Meanwhile, the share of UK job ads including pay details plummeted to its lowest level of the year – and the lowest level since Adzuna records began in 2016 – to 41.97%. This means close to 3 in 5 job ads (58.03%) now fail to disclose salaries.
Time to fill
The average time to fill a role fell to 35.1 days from 35.9 days in the previous month.
Competition
The drop in vacancies also caused competition for roles to intensify again in December to its highest level in more than four years. There are now 2.3 jobseekers vying for every advertised vacancy, as ONS data shows unemployment held firm at 5.1% – the highest rate since 2020.
Hottest cities
Cambridge remains the top city for job hunters, with the lowest jobseeker to available roles ratio at 0.42, with 5,924 roles available. Guildford comes second with 0.59 and Oxford third with 0.67.
The hardest city to find a role is Bradford, with 9.55 jobseekers per role, followed by Luton (5.68) and Birmingham (5.63).
UK regions
Vacancies continued to fall across almost every region of the UK in December, with only North East England seeing the number of roles increase (+1.09%) month-on-month. Scotland recorded the steepest monthly decline, with vacancies falling -8.36% compared with November 2025.
Despite the rise in vacancies, job hunters in the North East continued to face the highest pressure, with 3.81 jobseekers per vacancy, followed by the West Midlands on 3.52. At the other end of the scale, the South West remained the least competitive region with 1.55 jobseekers per vacancy, ahead of the South East at 1.67.
Despite falling vacancy numbers, advertised salaries continued to rise across every region on both a monthly and annual basis in December. Wales recorded the strongest annual pay growth at +11.41%, followed by Scotland (+8.63%) and London (+7.48%). This means annual salaries in Wales have risen consistently by double digits since last January.
London remains the highest-paying part of the country, with average advertised salaries at £49,564, making it the only region with pay levels above the UK average and on track to be the first to surpass the £50,000 mark.
UK sectors
Employers were planning ahead and kick-started early-career recruitment in December. Entry-level roles increased +18.3% month-on-month, and Graduate hiring showed its first month-on-month recovery since the summer, with both vacancies and salaries rising +3.9% and +3.3% respectively, although vacancies were still down -34.6% annually compared to December 2024. However, the proportion of young people not in education, employment, or training (NEETs) has remained at record highs since 2014.
Beyond early careers, hiring across sectors remained subdued in many frontline roles. Logistics & Warehouse roles dropped -16.28% monthly and remained more than a third (-35.91%) lower than in 2024, while Hospitality & Catering roles also saw both monthly (-15.54%) and annual (-27.64%) declines, with the usual festive uplifts failing to materialise in these key sectors.
Customer Services openings dropped -8.97% monthly and -24.23% annually, while Retail hiring weakened further, down -19.63% month-on-month and -17.61% annually.
Outside frontline sectors, Healthcare & Nursing vacancies remain under pressure at -25.8% below last year’s levels.
Conversely, Domestic & Cleaning roles continued to stand apart with vacancies sitting significantly higher than a year earlier, up +73.39% annually. After a year of declines and marginal increases, the number of Teaching vacancies also increased monthly +13.23% monthly in December, up +7.68% year-on-year.
Despite the uneven hiring landscape, salaries performed much better across the board with only three sectors – Energy, Oil & Gas (-1.87%), Maintenance (-2.05%), and Travel (-8.58%) – seeing annual declines. IT experienced double-digit annual wage growth again in December (+12.72%) and remained the highest-paid sector, with an average salary of £63,134. Domestic & Cleaning annual salaries also increased (+12.89%), but it remains the only sector to have average salaries below £30,000 at £29,754.
When it comes to hiring speed, the national average fell again to 35.1 days with Admin roles still filling the fastest at 31.7 days. Energy, Oil & Gasnow takes the longest to fill (39.3 days), followed by Graduate (38) and Healthcare & Nursing (37.8).
Trending jobs
After four months at the top, Warehouse Worker was leapfrogged by Healthcare Support Worker on Adzuna’s Trending Jobs list in December. Cleaner remained in third with Lorry Driver continuing to climb the rankings to fourth, after re-entering the top 10 in November. Delivery Driver fell one place to fifth, followed by Social Care Worker, maintaining the latter’s long-running position among the UK’s most-searched roles. Administrator (10th) returned to the top 10 for the first time since May 2025, while Project Manager and Manager held consistent popularity across the month in 8th and 9th 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.