UK Job Market Report
27 January 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
After a brief respite in November when job vacancies rose +2.3% month-on-month, jobseekers continued to face a difficult hiring landscape in December 2024, with job vacancies falling -4.01% to 844,152 in December. On a positive note, while vacancies dropped -9.15% year-on-year, it represents the smallest annual decrease since November 2023. As a result, the number of jobseekers per vacancy has reached 2.05, up from 1.96 month-on-month.
Salaries
The average advertised annual salary passed £40,000 for the first time in December 2024. Driven by continuing demand for skilled staff, together with employer hesitancy around hiring, salaries went up +7.15% from £37,577 in December 2023.
Salary transparency continues to trend downwards with more employers in the UK hiding salaries in job postings (53.71%) compared to those with (46.29%). In fact, 2024 was the worst year on record for salary transparency, with only one month in the whole year, February, where there were more jobs with salary information (50.7%) than without (49.3%).
Time to fill
The average duration of job postings has increased from 32.8 days to 34.1 days in December.
Competition
The number of jobseekers per vacancy rose to 2.05 applicants per role up from November’s figure of 1.96.
Hottest cities
Cambridge remains the top city for job hunters, with the lowest jobseeker to available roles ratio at 0.4, with 2,610 roles available. Guildford comes second with 0.47 and Exeter third with 0.69.
The hardest city to find a role is Bradford, with 9.8 jobseekers per role, followed by Birmingham (5.32) and Luton (4.92).
UK regions
Advertised vacancies are down month-on-month in all regions, led by North East England (-1.72%), London (-2.93%), and East Midlands (-3.46%).
As vacancies fell again in December, the number of jobseekers per vacancy rose to 2.05, causing jobseeker figures to rise across the regions. Four regions now have jobseeker per vacancy figures over 3.0 – Yorkshire And The Humber, West Midlands, Northern Ireland and North East England, though numbers remain low in South West England, South East England and Eastern England.
Advertised salaries continued to climb in the regions with Northern Ireland experiencing the last annual growth, +13.77%, followed by the West Midlands and North East England. London and South East England continue to be at the bottom end of the table, though South West England overtook London, up +5.7%, in December.
UK sectors
The UK-wide fall in monthly jobs has had an impact on sectors with the majority experiencing falls in advertised roles. Trade & Construction and Teaching continue to post positive growth, up +6.63% and +4.32%, with Teaching now boosting over 155,000 jobs on Adzuna. However, this was offset by slight falls in professional sectors, such as Accounting & Finance (-2.29%), Consultancy (-2.23%), and Legal (-3.42%). After rising in November, retail jobs dropped in December, down -19.01% whilst Hospitality & Catering fell -12.73%.
There was more positive annual growth for sectors. Teaching had the largest annual increase, +25.71%, compared to December 2023, whilst Legal, Logistics & Warehouse and Sales also saw annual growth, up +6.89%, +3.84% and +3.23% respectively. However, the majority of sectors experienced a dip in roles including Retail (-41.39%), PR, Advertising & Marketing (-38.36%), Energy, Oil & Gas (-36.87%) and Graduate (-24.4%).
It is the opposite story when it comes to average annual salaries. The majority of sectors saw an increase on a month-by-month basis from November, including Travel (+5.22%), Maintenance (+3.41%), Logistics & Warehouse (+3.34%), Manufacturing (+2.81%) and Graduate (+1.9%). Only Admin experienced a fall in average salary, down -0.1%.
Legal was the only sector to see a dip in average salaries on an annual basis, down -3.5% compared to December 2023. This was contrasted to other sectors which saw high growth such as Maintenance (+19.45%), Logistics & Warehouse (+16.5%) and Retail (+15.72%).
Legal remains the sector with the shortest time to fill jobs at 31.1 days, followed by Admin (31.6) and Property (31.9). Whilst, Domestic Help & Cleaning jobs take the longest to fill at 38.7 days, followed by Energy, Oil & Gas (38.5) and Healthcare & Nursing (37.0).
Trending jobs
Healthcare Support Worker has reclaimed the number one spot as the most in-demand role on Adzuna’s Trending Roles list. This metric ranks occupations based on their Interest Quotient, which measures how often job postings are viewed relative to other roles. A higher quotient indicates greater demand among jobseekers.
After briefly returning to the top spot last month, Warehouse Worker was second followed by Social Care Worker, Sales Assistant and Cleaner.
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.