UK Job Market Report
29 September 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 continued to fall in August following a downward dip in July, dropping -2.1% month-on-month to 846,567 and slipping -1.3% annually.
This marks the first year-on-year decline since February, breaking a run of five months of annual growth. Still, vacancy levels remain close to the highs seen earlier in 2025, and are still +2.2% higher than January (828,467), often a peak hiring month. All of which hints at a labour market that is cooling, not collapsing.
Salaries
Average advertised salaries also continue to show resilience, ticking up +0.24% month-on-month to £42,367. As a result, pay growth remains strong year-on-year at +8.9% and continues to outpace inflation, even if the rapid acceleration of earlier in the year has eased. This is in the wake of inflation holding at 3.8%, and continues to be compounded by the National Minimum Wage increase in April.
Salary transparency, however, slipped back. In August, just 43.9% of job ads included pay details, down from 45% in July, reversing the recent improvements seen earlier in the summer.
Time to fill
The average time to fill a role sat at 37.3 days, almost a day longer than the previous month’s 36.3 days.
Competition
With unemployment also holding at a four-year high of 4.7%, and with vacancies continuing to fall in August, competition has intensified slightly, with 2 jobseekers per vacancy.
Hottest cities
Cambridge remains the top city for job hunters, with the lowest jobseeker to available roles ratio at 0.39, with 6,668 roles available. Guildford comes second with 0.55 and Oxford third with 0.62.
The hardest city to find a role is Bradford, with 8.8 jobseekers per role, followed by Birmingham (5.38) and Luton (5.05).
UK regions
Vacancies fell across all UK regions in August, continuing the slowdown seen through the summer. The steepest month-on-month declines came in London (-4.4%), Eastern England (-2.7%), and the South West (-2.6%).
On an annual basis, Wales (-11.2%) and Scotland (-8.1%) recorded the largest falls in job openings. By contrast, Northern Ireland remained the standout with vacancies up +52.3% year-on-year.
Salaries continued to rise across the country. Scotland (+12.15%) has leapfrogged Northern Ireland (+11.81%) after its five-month reign as the highest annual salary increase, with Eastern England also experiencing healthy gains (+9.6%). London remains the UK’s highest-paying region, with average salaries of £48,662.
UK sectors
Healthcare continues to be one of the hardest-hit areas of the labour market. Vacancies in the sector fell a further -6.7% month-on-month in August, after falling -10.34% in July, followed by Hospitality & Catering (-6.5%), and Teaching (-6.4%). Meanwhile, Domestic Help & Cleaning (+6.8%) and HR & Recruitment (+5.1%) were among the strongest risers in monthly vacancies.
In terms of pay, Creative & Design salaries rose +1.5% month-on-month in August, while PR, Advertising and Marketing (+1.1%) also saw increases. By contrast, Teaching salaries dropped -2.3%, alongside smaller declines in Maintenance (-0.8%).
When it comes to hiring speed, the latest data shows little movement overall. Average time-to-fill has hovered around 37 days through the summer and continues to hold steady at 37.3. Some contrasts have emerged: Hospitality & Catering roles were filled almost a week faster than the previous month, averaging 31.9 days down from 38.4 days, while IT roles slowed sharply, now taking 50 days compared to 40.3 days the month prior.
Trending jobs
Healthcare roles have dominated Adzuna’s Trending Jobs rankings for much of the past year, with either Healthcare Assistant or Healthcare Support Worker holding the top spot since December 2024. Yet, this dominance shifted in August as Warehouse Worker jumped back to the top spot for the first time since November, followed by Social Care Worker. Healthcare Support Worker was pushed into third with Healthcare Assistant dropping to fifth, below Project Manager, which rose from eighth in July.
Sales Assistant, Assistant, and Cleaner also featured in the top 10, joined by Retail Sales Adviser and Software Developer, which returned to the list after dropping out entirely in July.
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.