The average advertised annual salary passed £40,000 for the first time in December 2024, according to the latest UK Job Market Report by job matching platform Adzuna.
Continuing demand for skilled staff, together with employer hesitancy around hiring, have pushed salaries up +7.15% from £37,577 in December 2023.
After a brief respite in November when job vacancies rose +2.3% month-on-month, job seekers continued to face a difficult hiring landscape in December, 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 MoM.
The average duration of job postings has increased from 32.8 days to 34.1 days. 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).
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%).
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%).
The opposite is true for 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%).
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.
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, Social Care Worker, Sales Assistant and Cleaner followed Warehouse Worker second.
Andrew Hunter, co-founder of Adzuna, said, “Jobseekers who were hoping for a continued streak of growth in available roles following November’s bounce will be disappointed, as vacancies fell again in December.
“This could be attributed to the seasonal hiring slowing down over the Christmas period. Sectors such as Teaching continue to have a high volume of roles whilst Legal, Logistics & Warehouse and Sales roles have all experienced an annual increase compared to the same time last year.
“Whilst it appears companies are not hiring as much, they are loosening their purse strings, with the average advertised salary now reaching over £40,000 for the first time since we started tracking the UK job market in 2016.”
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