UK job vacancies fell to 728,037 in September 2026, according to the latest job market data from Adzuna, extending a sustained period of labour market softening. The 11.9 per cent year-on-year decline marks a further deterioration from the 7.2 per cent month-on-month drop recorded since August. With 2.33 jobseekers now chasing every available role, competition for work has not been this intense since mid-2024.
The picture is broadly consistent with ONS data. The ONS recorded a claimant count of 1,698,450 for September – up 2.5 per cent year-on-year – and estimated total vacancies at around 818,000 over the three months to September, down from over a million a year prior. Regular pay growth is running at around 4.9 per cent in the year to August, above Adzuna’s 3.2 per cent advertised salary growth figure.
One bright spot is that the average advertised salaries remain positive at £43,780, holding up despite weaker hiring volumes. For jobseekers, the combination of fewer roles and still-rising pay means the market remains competitive but not closed. For employers, the message is increasingly one of constraint: firms posting fewer roles and being more selective, even as wage costs remain elevated.
Sector Highlights
Healthcare continued its recovery, with Mental Health Practitioner roles, Specialist Nurses, and Clinical Nurse Specialists all showing strong demand shifts over the six months to October. This pattern is consistent with NHS recruitment priorities and aligns with ONS data showing human health and social work as the highest-volume hiring sector.
Teaching vacancies showed a sharp contraction, down around 4 per cent year-on-year in September. IT vacancies fell 11.1 per cent year-on-year. Trade & Construction fell 5.8 per cent. Logistics & Warehouse dropped 23.0 per cent, despite Warehouse Worker remaining the most sought-after occupation by Interest Quotient. The gap between high jobseeker interest and falling vacancy volumes captures something important about the current market: candidates are hungry for work that employers are increasingly reluctant to open and advertise. On salary, IT (£65,577), Legal (£59,118), and Trade & Construction (£55,921) are the highest-paying sectors.
Graduate job vacancies fell to 7,826 in September 2026, down from 13,754 in September 2025 – a 43 per cent year-on-year decline. This reflects the broader tightening of entry-level hiring across professional services, tech, and graduate-heavy sectors.
The average advertised salary for graduate roles stood at £27,700 in September 2026. Graduate pay remains broadly stable, but the squeeze on graduate vacancy volumes is effectively pushing up competition for the roles that do exist.
Salary Transparency
50.99 per cent of UK job adverts on Adzuna included a salary in September 2026 – the first month on record in which the majority of roles have disclosed pay information. While the crossing of the 50 per cent threshold is a meaningful milestone, it also underscores how recently the practice of hiding salaries has been standard: just months ago, fewer than half of all advertised roles included pay details.
The government launched a formal consultation in July 2026 proposing that all employers be required to disclose salary information in job adverts. Under the proposals, candidates for roles not formally advertised would receive pay details in writing before the interview. The consultation – which also covers broader equal pay reform, including stronger rights for ethnic minority and disabled workers and a new Equal Pay Regulatory and Enforcement Unit – closes at 5pm on 27 October 2026.
Adzuna’s data shows the market is moving in the right direction, but slowly. Research cited in the government’s own consultation materials suggests 78 per cent of jobseekers are put off by roles that do not show a salary. With 49 per cent of advertised roles still leaving candidates in the dark, mandatory disclosure – if enacted – would represent the most significant structural change to UK recruitment advertising in a generation, and would bring the remaining 49 per cent in line with the direction the market is already heading.
“September’s figures are sobering,” said Andrew Hunter, Co-Founder, Adzuna. “Vacancies are down nearly 12 per cent on the year, and there are now more than two job seekers for every role advertised. The balance of power in the hiring market has shifted further toward employers – which matters a lot to the millions of people out of work right now.
“There are a couple of bright spots,” he added. “Job opportunities in healthcare – nursing, mental health, social care – are still seeing real demand. And more than half of UK job ads now include a salary, for the first time. That lands at an interesting moment, with the government consultation on mandatory disclosure closing in days. Our data has long suggested that hiding salary puts quality candidates off applying. In a market where employers are already getting more applicants than they’ve had in years, it’s a strange time to be hiding salary information.”
