Summarising this year’s jobs market in a sentence is difficult: it is neither a broad recovery nor a general contraction, but a clear structural reshuffle.
Total hiring demand recovered modestly across the year. Break it down by sector, though, and the growth is highly concentrated: advanced manufacturing, healthcare and local services account for most of the new roles, while demand in parts of the traditional white-collar market continues to fall.
The skills premium is widening
A trend running for three years became clearer this year: pay for skilled roles is rising faster than the market average. Starting salaries in machining, inspection, maintenance and nursing are broadly up, and some roles now go unfilled for long stretches.
- Overall demand: modest recovery, concentrated in three sectors
- Skills premium: starting pay for skilled roles above the average rise
- Graduate applications: 47 each on average, a record
- Career change: more than a third of respondents considered switching sector
At the other end sits the intensity of competition. Graduates now send an average of 47 applications each, the highest since records began. Several HR leads said the extra volume has not improved screening; it has lengthened hiring cycles.
We are not short of CVs. We are short of people who can start on Monday.— HR director at a precision manufacturer
The survey also found more than a third of respondents had considered changing sector in the past year, with the highest share among under-30s. Researchers caution that the gap between intending to switch and succeeding remains wide.
Clearly written, and the section on the data is more solid than most coverage of this.
I had not thought about it from this angle. It did shift my view a little.
Hope there is a follow-up. These things tend to drop out of view after a few weeks.
Hope there is a follow-up. These things tend to drop out of view after a few weeks.