October’s job market shows signs of recovery, with vacancies up +0.64% compared to six months ago – suggesting a shift from a challenging first half of the year, according to new data from the latest UK Job Market Report by job search engine Adzuna.
While overall the jobs market remains subdued, with October vacancies down -0.17% month on month to 859,617, there are reasons for optimism. Steep drops in vacancies in the first half of 2024 appear to have stalled, with marginal improvements seen in July (+1.1%), September (+0.39%) and only a -0.17% drop in October.
With nearly 23,000 Christmas jobs on offer, seasonal hiring has fuelled strong growth in sectors including Trade & Construction, Retail and Hospitality & Catering this October. Additionally, Graduate roles continued to trend upwards for the fifth consecutive month, with vacancies increasing by +0.1%, while graduate salaries reached a record high of £25,101.
The number of jobseekers per vacancy remained at its highest level this year, with 2.08 jobseekers available for every role, up from 1.49 a year ago, and the highest since June 2021 (2.07). This is compounded by the UK’s employment rate rising to 4.3%, up from 4% in May.
The highly competitive nature of the market also saw advertised salaries climb for the fifth consecutive month in October, up +0.64% to a yearly high of £39,234. This also represents a +6.19% year-on-year increase, the biggest annual growth since April 2021.
Reflecting the tougher job-seeking environment, jobs are posted on Adzuna for an average of 39.5 days before being filled. This represents the highest time-to-fill rate since September 2022 and an increase from the 35.8 days seen in the two months before October.
Sectors where jobs are filled most quickly are Legal (33.9 days) – for the third month in a row, followed by Teaching (34.1 days), whilst the sectors which are the longest to fill continue to be Energy, Oil and Gas and Travel (53.2 days up from 44.4 days the previous month) and Retail (48.3 days). Having previously taken an average of 41.1 days to fill, Graduate roles are now being filled quicker, in 37.7 days.
As Christmas approaches, seasonal hiring has fuelled growth in many sectors. Trade & Construction continued to perform strongly in October, with new job adverts rising +8.59% month-on-month. This was accompanied by notable monthly gains in Retail (+6.09%), Hospitality & Catering (+1%) and Travel (+0.8%). Other monthly increases included Teaching (+5.06%), Social Work (+4.82%), Legal (+2.34%), and Creative & Design (+1.69%).
Graduate roles continued to trend upwards in October for the fifth month in a row, +0.1% to 22,916 jobs, and graduate salaries reached a record high of £25,101.
However, October also saw continued declines in many sectors. The hardest hit was Sales (-9.82%). Nevertheless, compared to six months ago, there was still a +6.5% increase in openings. Other sectors like IT (-9.63%) and Energy, Oil & Gas (-8.42%) experiencing monthly falls included PR, Advertising and Marketing (-5.03%), Admin (-3.32%) and Customer Service (-3.03%), Domestic Help & Cleaning (-2.98%), Consulting (-2.62%), Accounting & Finance (-2.43%), Healthcare & Nursing (-2.02%), Maintenance (-1.87%), Property (-1.75%), Charity & Voluntary (-1.32%), Logistics & Warehouse (-1.15%), HR & Recruitment (-0.9%) Engineering (-0.3%), Scientific & QA (-0.23%) and Manufacturing (-0.2%).
Year-on-year trends reveal a similar pattern, with few sectors showing annual growth. Only two sectors experienced a year-on-year increase in vacancies as of October 2024: Teaching jobs, which saw a huge +26.8% increase, followed by a smaller uplift for Legal Jobs (+3.32%).
The majority of sectors experienced a monthly uptick in average advertised salaries, led by Logistics & Warehouse (+3.78%), IT (+2.86%), Accounting & Finance (+2.15%), Admin (+1.65%), Energy, Oil & Gas (+1.5%), Graduate (+1.5%), Property (+1.49%), Trade & Construction (+1.35%), Engineering (+0.85%), Scientific & QA (+0.67%), Manufacturing (+0.65%), Maintenance (+0.64%), PR, Advertising & Marketing (+0.63%) and Customer Service (+0.62%). Only a few sectors saw monthly salaries fall, including Teaching (-0.16%), Retail (-0.55%), Social Work (-1.03%) and Travel (-1.07%).
The yearly declines in roles, which ultimately increase competition, may also explain why salaries in these sectors jumped tremendously in October. Retail salaries are up +14.18% year-on-year – the highest of any sector – followed by Customer Services Jobs (+14.09%) and Admin Jobs (+13.77%).
More broadly, all sectors saw yearly salary increases including Social Work (+11.06%), Domestic Help & Cleaning (+10.08%), Logistics & Warehouse (+9.73%), Manufacturing (+8.87%), Accounting & Finance (+8.32%), Maintenance (+8.01%), Hospitality & Catering (+7.1%), Trade & Construction (+7.08%), Energy, Oil & Gas (+7.01%), Charity & Voluntary (+6.27%), Engineering (+6.2%), Creative & Design (+5.64%), Consultancy (+5.51%) and IT (+5.37%). The only exception was Legal which dropped -1.64% – the second month in a row Legal salaries have been below the previous year’s figures.
There’s been a slight improvement in salary transparency in October. Some 47.68% of roles listed the salary details as part of the ad, up from 46.34% in September. This still means that more than half of job ads aren’t disclosing salary details, but it is a step in the right direction.
The number of jobseekers per vacancy in October has risen again to the highest levels this year, to 2.09, up from 2.08 in September. Across the regions, this has stayed broadly stable with the East Midlands experiencing no change at all.
Meanwhile, all regions experienced positive increases in average advertised salaries compared to the same time last year, with London overtaking Yorkshire And The Humber and South West England for the first time with +5.14% growth. East Midlands has also slipped down the table with salary growth in North West England overtaking the region.
For the first time in over a year, Sales Assistant is the most in-demand role on Adzuna according to the platform’s Trending Jobs list, overtaking warehouse work which remained top for 17 straight months. 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.
In October, Social Care Worker remained in third position, followed by Healthcare Support Worker rose to fourth place, reflecting continued demand in the healthcare sector.
Andrew Hunter, co-founder of Adzuna, said: “2024 had a challenging start, with January vacancies falling close to -7% monthly and -15% annually, making it the gloomiest January on record. However, the second half of the year has shown signs of recovery and resilience.
“This October, we saw the first positive six-month change in vacancy numbers. Driven by preparations for the busy Christmas shopping season, sectors like Trade & Construction and Retail are ramping up hiring. We are excited to see where this leads as we head into the new year.”
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