Jobs market experiences an uptick driven by new trade & construction and graduate roles – London Business News | Londonlovesbusiness.com

UK job vacancies increased marginally in September driven by gains in sectors including Trade & Construction, Logistics & Warehouse and Graduate, according to new data from the latest UK Job Market Report by job search engine Adzuna.

The small increase in advertised roles – up +0.39% from August to 861,085 – coupled with falling inflation and growth in GDP, offers more reasons for confidence in the jobs market than in recent months.

The increase in roles comes as unemployment fell slightly to 4.0%, which also brought the number of jobseekers per available roles, down to 2.08. September’s job figures represent a fall of -15.81% compared to the same time last year, demonstrating that the UK job market has settled into its new normal.

Advertised annual salaries increased in September, up +0.24% monthly to £38,984 and up +5.1% compared to the same time last year. Yet salary transparency remains at record low levels, with just 46.34% of jobs posted with salary, compared to 53.66% posted without.

Jobs are posted on Adzuna for an average of 35.8 days before being filled, the same as in last month. Sectors where jobs are filled most quickly are Legal (31.8), Teaching (32.2) and Admin (32.3), whilst the sectors which are the longest to fill include Energy, Oil and Gas and Travel (44.4 days), Graduate (41.1) and Healthcare & Nursing (38.8).

Trade & Construction and Teaching driving job growth

After experiencing a -2.62% fall in vacancies month-on-month in August, Trade & Construction experienced a momentous surge in new job adverts, up +14.95% in September. This was followed by increases in Charity & Voluntary (+6.57%), Logistics & Warehouse (+4.76%), Graduate (+4.6%), Creative & Design (+3.54%), Hospitality & Catering (+3.27%), Social Work (+2.46%), Retail (+1.16%), Teaching (+0.91%), Property (+0.86%) and Healthcare & Nursing (+0.13%).

The increase in Graduate roles is particularly positive for younger jobseekers. There are now nearly 23,000 Graduate roles on Adzuna, the highest number recorded this year, with the average Graduate salary at £24,736 – the highest since Adzuna started tracking in April 2016.

However, the majority of sectors continued to see monthly advertised job numbers fall, which depressed the overall figures. As summer holidays have ended, Travel experienced a -7.36% job decrease in September, followed by Energy, Oil & Gas (-6.13%), Domestic Help & Cleaning (-4.23%), Customer Service (-4.16%), Accounting & Finance (-3.8%), Sales (-3.76%), PR, Advertising & Marketing (-2.7%), Engineering (-2.6%), Scientific & QA (-1.77%), Consultancy (-1.52%), HR & Recruitment (-1.12%), Admin (-1.07%), Legal (-0.57%), and IT (-0.22%).

Very few sectors experienced an annual increase in vacancies compared to the same time last year. Teaching roles have continued to surge, up +25.96% compared to last September, whilst Logistics & Warehouse (+1.62%) and Sales (+0.73%) also saw slight uplifts. The increase in Logistics & Warehouse roles both monthly and annually will likely be because companies will start preparing for increased demand ahead of the festive season. This was contrasted by widespread falls in vacancies year-on-year particularly in sectors such as Admin (-47.36%) and Trade & Construction (-39.36%).

Modest increases in average salaries

As average advertised salaries slowly creep up, the majority of sectors experienced modest monthly increases, including Graduate (+2.0%), Trade & Construction (+1.41%), Customer Service (+0.9%), Admin (+0.89%), Creative & Design (+0.83%), Sales (+0.7%), Engineering (+0.68%), Maintenance (+0.63%), Charity & voluntary (+0.6%), IT (+0.57%), PR, Advertising & Marketing (+0.51%), Logistics & Warehouse (+0.51%), Consultancy (+0.47%), HR & Recruitment (+0.38%), Accounting & Finance (+0.36%), Manufacturing (+0.32%), Scientific & QA (+0.15%) and Domestic Help & Cleaning (+0.03%).

However, there was still a number of sectors where average advertised salaries fell in September, in particular Travel (-2.63%), Energy, Oil & Gas (-1.93%), Social Work (-1.89%), Hospitality & Catering (-1.42%), Teaching (-0.74%), Retail (-0.66%), Legal (-0.64%), Property (-0.35%) and Healthcare & Nursing (-0.19%).

Amidst a strong annual increase of +5.1% in the UK’s overall average advertised salary, the majority of sectors saw significant annual salary growth, including Retail (+14.28%), Social Work (+13.85%), Customer Service (+12.89%), Admin (+10.99%), Domestic Help & Cleaning (+9.81%), Energy, Oil & Gas (+8.4%), Manufacturing (+8.16%) and Hospitality & Catering (+8.09). Only one sector experienced an annual drop in advertised salaries – Legal (-0.37%).

Stable job seeker figures and strong annual salary increases

Following August’s high national jobseeker-to-vacancy ratio (2.087), this appears to have stabilised at 2.098 in September. As a result, jobseeker per vacancy rations stayed broadly stable across the regions with 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 +4.03% growth. East Midlands has also slipped down the table with salary growth in North West England overtaking the region.

Warehouse worker continues to be the most in-demand role on Adzuna for the 16th month running, according to 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.

Sales Assistant overtook Cleaner to second place, and Social Care Worker followed in third. Demand for Cleaner roles fell, with the role now in sixth place, but Healthcare Support Worker rose to fourth place.

Andrew Hunter, co-founder of Adzuna, said, “Advertised vacancies have bounced back from a slight dip in August, reflecting what appears to be the new normal for the jobs market now. Over the past year, vacancy numbers have hovered between 850,000 and 870,000, underscoring how tight the labour market has become.

“At the same time, average advertised salaries are continuing to rise, albeit very slowly, with a growing lack of salary transparency making it increasingly difficult to track these metrics. However, positive movements in sectors such as Trade & Construction, Logistics & Warehouse and Graduate, coupled with falling inflation and growing GDP, offer more reasons for optimism in the jobs market than in recent months.

“In fact, an early snapshot of October shows that vacancies were up +3.23% compared to the same period in September, driven by an increase in Travel, Retail and Teaching roles.”