UK job vacancies rose +1.1% in July for the first time this year, up to 862,043 compared to June, bringing the first sign of an improvement in prospects to those seeking a new role.
Following positive growth figures and the election of a new government, business confidence rebounded in July which has translated through to increased hiring, according to new data from the latest UK Job Market Report by job search engine Adzuna.
Compared to July 2023, vacancies are still down -17.69%, which demonstrates that the market still has a long way to go to achieve a full recovery. Meanwhile, average advertised salaries are higher compared to last year, up +2.95% to £38,863 whilst month-on-month average advertised salaries increased marginally, up +0.08%.
In a sign of further contractions in the job market, there are now 2.09 jobseekers per vacancy, the highest it has been since May 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Jobs are filling at the fastest pace this year, with an average time-to-fill of 35.6 days in July, down from 36 days last month. The sector with the shortest live job posting time is Property (32.0 days), followed by Teaching (32.2) and Legal (32.6). Meanwhile, Travel has the longest live job posting time at 48.8 days on average, followed by Energy, Oil & Gas (44.8) and IT (40.0).
While prospects for jobseekers may have improved, salary transparency hits rock bottom in July. The proportion of job adverts with salaries has fallen to 46.3% in July, the lowest recorded figure since Adzuna started tracking this metric in 2016. Over half (52.3%) of job adverts do not include any salary information.
Domestic help and graduate roles drive monthly job vacancies
Domestic Help & Cleaning roles have helped to boost growth in monthly job vacancies, with roles increasing by +12.72% MoM in July, following a +7.8% MoM increase in roles in June. Meanwhile, the Graduate job market continues to grow consistently, rising +3.7% month-over-month to 21,399 vacancies in July.
This was also followed by growth in sectors including Legal (+3.03%), Manufacturing (+2.74%), Logistics & Warehouse (+2.15%) and Creative & Design (+1.6%).
However several sectors continued to see vacancies fall, including Charity & Voluntary (-8.04%), Travel (-4.74%), Hospitality & Catering (-4.58%), Trade & Construction (-4.57%), Property (-4.53%), Accounting & Finance (-3.84%) and Healthcare & Nursing (-3.67%).
Similar to the last few months, two sectors experienced annual increases in job vacancies: Teaching (+14.01%) and Travel (+1.39%). Meanwhile, the majority saw job vacancies fall year-on-year, including Trade & Construction (-50.05%), Admin (-48.67%), PR, Advertising & Marketing (-40.56%), Healthcare & Nursing (-33.17%) and Domestic Help & Cleaning (-32.49%). Despite an annual decline in Graduate vacancies (-12.1%), the gap has narrowed significantly, marking the smallest annual drop since September 2022.
Despite overall average advertised salaries staying broadly flat in July, many sectors saw salaries increase month-on-month, including Charity & Voluntary (+2.26%), Travel (+1.95%), Logistics & Warehouse (+1.75%), Consultancy (+1.61%), Customer Service (+1.43%), Maintenance (+0.99%) and Creative & Design (+0.77%). However, this growth was offset by declines in sectors such as Legal (-1.04%), Retail (-0.37%) and Teaching (-0.35%).
Year-on-year, only one sector experienced a decrease in average advertised salaries, IT, with salaries falling -3.67% compared to July 2023. The sectors that saw the largest annual increase included Energy, Oil & Gas (+18.03%), Social Work (+11.76%), Retail (+10.86%) and Domestic Help & Cleaning (+8.85%).
Sluggish wage growth in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland continues to experience sluggish annual wage growth with advertised average salaries rising only +1.08% in July compared to the same period last year. Whilst Wales, which has often been bottom of the table when it comes to annual advertised salary increases, has overtaken Northern Ireland and is close behind South East England in July.
The Midlands regions have experienced the highest percentage of annual salary increases. The West Midlands overtook both Eastern England and East Midlands, with average salaries increases at +5.62% compared to July 2023.
Warehouse continues to be top trending role
Warehouse work has been the most in-demand role on Adzuna for 14 months in a row, topping the platform’s Trending Jobs list. This metric tracks demand for a wide range of occupations and designates an Interest Quotient for each role. The higher the quotient, the more in demand those roles are among Adzuna jobseekers.
Cleaner came second in July, the second month in a row that this role has been this high. Social Care Worker which has traditionally been an in-demand role has fallen to sixth place as Sales Assistant took over as the third-most searched-for job.
James Neave, Head of Data Science of Adzuna, said, “Optimism about the UK economy following higher than expected growth figures and a new government has extended into the jobs market with the first monthly rise in job postings this year in July.
“An increase of +1.1% may seem small but we’re used to seeing job postings fall during the summer months as companies put hiring plans on pause because of holidays.
“Confidence is even extending into junior-level hiring with Graduate roles up +3.7% compared to June which is great news for those leaving university. We’ll have to see if this optimism extends into August but it should bring some respite to job hunters for now.”
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