Vacancies and jobs in the UK: August 2024

• Labour market overview

• Employment in the UK

• Average weekly earnings in Great Britain

• Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information

• The estimated number of vacancies in the UK in May to July 2024 was 884,000, a decrease of 26,000 or 2.8% from February to April 2024.

• Vacancy numbers decreased on the quarter for the 25th consecutive period in May to July 2024, with vacancies decreasing in 10 of the 18 industry sectors.

• In May to July 2024, total estimated vacancies were down by 141,000 (13.7%) from the level of a year ago, although they remained 88,000 (11.0%) above their pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic January to March 2020 levels.

• In April to June 2024, the number of unemployed people per vacancy was 1.6, unchanged from the previous quarter (January to March 2024).

The series of quarterly decreases in vacancy numbers continued in May to July 2024, reducing for the 25th consecutive period, and has seen the total number of vacancies decline by an estimated 421,000 since its peak in March to May 2022.

The headline vacancy estimates are based on three-month averages, which naturally involve some time lag. Insights into trends in July 2024 are provided by two alternative data sources: our Dataset X06: Single month vacancies estimates (see Section 7: Data sources and quality), and the Online job advert estimates official statistics in development from Adzuna. Please note that caution is advised when viewing these alternative data sources, because the data are not seasonally adjusted or directly comparable.

The estimated total number of vacancies decreased by 2.8% from the previous quarter, declining in 10 of the 18 industry sectors, with real estate activities declining the most by 13.5%. The largest growth in vacancies on the quarter was in water supply, sewerage, waste and remediation activities, which increased by 25.4%.

The estimated number of vacancies decreased on the quarter by 26,000 to 884,000 in May to July 2024. This was the 25^th consecutive quarterly fall. The largest decreases observed were in accommodation and food service activities, and administrative and support service activities, which were down by 9,000 and 7,000 vacancies, respectively.

When comparing May to July 2024 with the same time last year, total vacancies decreased by 141,000 (13.7%), with declines in 16 of the 18 industry sectors. The industries that decreased the most were wholesale and retail trade: repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, accommodation and food service activities, and human health and social work, which fell by a combined total of 78,000 vacancies.

The total estimated number of vacancies remains 88,000 (11.0%) above its January to March 2020 pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic level. The two industry sectors that have increased the most from their January to March 2020 levels are human health and social work activities, and professional, scientific and technical activities, which were up by an estimated 22,000 and 19,000 vacancies, respectively. Five industry sectors are currently below pre-pandemic levels, with a combined decrease of 30,000 vacancies. These include wholesale and retail trade: repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, down the most by an estimated 22,000 vacancies.

In April to June 2024, the number of unemployed people per vacancy was 1.6, unchanged from January to March 2024.

Growth varied across industry size bands on the quarter. Only the smallest size band, 1 to 9 employees, increased, while the other size bands decreased. All size bands decreased on the year, with the largest decrease of 17.2% for businesses with 2,500 or more employees. Vacancies in this size band are now 9,000 below their January to March 2020 pre-pandemic level.

Our workforce jobs (WFJ) estimates are published every three months. Our latest estimates were published in June 2024 for the period March 2024. WFJ estimates are provided from various sources, which are outlined in Section 7: Data sources and quality

The estimated number of WFJ for March 2024 was 37.2 million, as described in our Vacancies and jobs in the UK: June 2024 bulletin, which continues to be at historically high levels. This is a rise of 297,000 (0.8%) since December 2023, with increases in employee jobs of 123,000 (0.4%), and self-employment jobs of 183,000 (4.4%). This is alongside a combined decline in government-supported trainees and His Majesty's (HM) Forces of 9,000 (4.3%).

The large increase in WFJ is because employee jobs have risen every quarter since December 2020 and are now at 32.7 million. Growth in the self-employment component of workforce jobs has been less consistent over the same period, but has shown a substantial increase this quarter. Compared with the equivalent period last year, WFJ are up by 431,000 (1.2%), with employee jobs up by 433,000 (1.3%) and self-employment jobs up by 46,000 (1.1%), while government-supported trainees and HM Forces are showing a combined fall of 49,000 (21.7%).

Annually, growth in the WFJ estimates has varied with 6 of the 20 industry sectors below March 2023 levels. Administrative and support service activities had the largest decrease in job numbers, at 87,000 (2.8%). However, most industries displayed increases, with the largest rise from human health and social work, up 228,000 (4.8%).

Vacancies

Vacancies are positions for which employers are actively seeking recruits from outside of their business or organisation. The estimates are based on our Vacancy Survey, a survey of employers designed to provide estimates of the stock of vacancies across the economy, excluding agriculture, forestry and fishing (a small sector for which the collection of estimates would not be practical). For more information, see Section 11: Vacancies in our A guide to labour market statistics methodology.

Jobs

A job is an activity performed for an employer or customer by a worker in exchange for payment, usually in cash, or in kind, or both. The number of jobs is not the same as the number of people in employment. This is because a person can have more than one job. The number of jobs is the sum of employee jobs from employer surveys, self-employment jobs from the Labour Force Survey (LFS), those in HM Forces and government-supported trainees. The number of people in employment is measured by the LFS. These estimates are available in our Employment in the UK releases. For more information, see Section 10: Jobs, in our A guide to labour market statistics methodology

A more detailed glossary is available.

Accredited official statistics

These accredited official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in April 2022. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled "accredited official statistics".

Important notes

Published data accompanying this release are presented as rounded figures. All changes presented in this bulletin are calculated from unrounded estimates, therefore users may calculate slightly different changes when using the accompanying data tables.

In August 2024, we updated the adjustment factors applied to vacancies estimates for Great Britain to cover Northern Ireland. Adjustments have been applied to all periods since May to July 2023 and will cause minor revisions across this period in the vacancies data published in August 2024.

The following notes apply to the latest quarterly Workforce jobs (WFJ) estimates published in our Vacancies and jobs in the UK: June 2024 bulletin.

From our February 2024 labour market release, Labour Force Survey (LFS) periods from July to September 2022 onwards have been reweighted to incorporate estimates of the size and composition of the UK population published in November 2023. The reweighting exercise created a discontinuity in total WFJ and self-employment jobs between June 2022 and September 2022. Users should take this discontinuity into consideration when looking at long-term movements in the series. Further information is available in our Impact of reweighting on Labour Force Survey key indicators: 2024 article. These LFS estimates are official statistics in development.

This reweighting does not address the volatility seen in recent periods and this may be seen to some extent in the future. Therefore, we advise increased caution when interpreting short-term changes in the series.

An issue was detected in the weighting of the LFS for Northern Ireland in our March 2024 publication, for the November 2023 to January 2024 quarter only. While only Northern Ireland data were affected, we were not able to publish regional WFJ figures. This has now been corrected. The full regional dataset for December 2023 is now available and revisions to UK totals for December 2023 accompany this release.

Making our published spreadsheets accessible

Following the Government Statistical Service (GSS) guidance on releasing statistics in spreadsheets we will be amending our published tables over the coming months to improve usability, accessibility and machine readability of our published statistics. To help users change to the new formats we will be publishing sample versions of a selection of our tables, and where practical, initially publish the tables in both the new and current formats. If you have any questions or comments, please email labour.market@ons.gov.uk.

Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Read more about how labour market data sources are affected by the coronavirus pandemic in our Coronavirus and the effects on UK labour market statistics article.

For a comparison of our labour market data sources and the main differences, read our Comparison of labour market data sources methodology.

Sources

The data in this bulletin come from surveys of businesses. It is not feasible to survey every business in the UK, so these statistics are estimates based on samples, not precise figures.

Vacancies

Estimates of vacancies are obtained from the Vacancy Survey, a survey of employers. Adzuna Online job advert estimates are also published as part of our Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators bulletins.

Jobs

Estimates of jobs are compiled from a number of sources, including Short-Term Employment Surveys (STES), the Quarterly Public Sector Employment Surveys (QPSES) and the Labour Force Survey (LFS). STES is a group of surveys that collect employment and turnover information from private sector businesses. In December of each year, the jobs estimates are "benchmarked" to the latest estimates from the Business Register and Employment Survey (BRES).

The STES estimates are drawn for a specified date early in the last month of each calendar quarter. The March 2020 data were from 13 March 2020 before the start of coronavirus (COVID-19) social distancing measures.

For more information on how jobs data are measured, please see our Vacancies and jobs in the UK: April 2021 bulletin.

More quality and methodology information on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in the Vacancy Survey QMI and Workforce jobs QMI.

Sampling variability

The sampling variability of the three-month average vacancies level is plus or minus 1.3% of that level expressed as a coefficient of variation, giving a 95% confidence interval for estimates of approximately plus or minus 32,000.

The sampling variability of the three-month average vacancies level for a typical industrial sector is around plus or minus 6% of that level.

Information on the strengths and limitations of this bulletin are available in our Vacancies and jobs in the UK: April 2021 bulletin.