Vacancies and jobs in the UK: January 2025

Labour market overview

Average weekly earnings in Great Britain

Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information

Employment in the UK

• The estimated number of vacancies was 812,000 in the UK in October to December 2024; this is a decrease of 24,000, or 2.9%, from July to September 2024.

• Vacancy numbers have been decreasing for two and a half years, with quarterly decreases in 10 of the 18 industry sectors in October to December 2024.

• Total estimated vacancies were down by 118,000 (12.7%) in October to December 2024 from the level of a year ago; however, they remained 16,000 (2.0%) above their pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic January to March 2020 levels.

• The number of unemployed people per vacancy was 1.9 in September to November 2024, up by 0.2 from 1.7 in the previous quarter (June to August 2024).

Vacancy numbers have been falling for two and a half years, with the series of quarterly decreases continuing in October to December 2024. The total number of vacancies has declined by an estimated 492,000, since its peak in March to May 2022.

The headline vacancy estimates are based on three-month averages, which involve some time lag. We provide insights into trends in December 2024 in our Dataset X06: Single month vacancies estimates. More information is available in Section 7: Data sources and quality. Further insights are provided from Labour demand volumes by Standard Occupation Classification (SOC 2020), UK which are official statistics in development sourced from Textkernel data. These estimates will be updated regularly as part of our Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators bulletins series. Please note that caution is advised when viewing these alternative data sources, because the data are not seasonally adjusted or directly comparable.

The number of unemployed people per vacancy was 1.9 in September to November 2024. This is up by 0.2 from 1.7 in the previous quarter (June to August 2024).

The estimated total number of vacancies decreased by 2.9% from the previous quarter, declining in 10 of the 18 industry sectors. The largest percentage decrease was in arts, entertainment and recreation, at 12.7%, followed by wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, which fell by 9.6%.

The estimated number of vacancies decreased on the quarter by 24,000 to 812,000 in October to December 2024. The largest decrease was in wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, which was down by 10,000 vacancies to 94,000. This was followed closely by human health and social work activities, which decreased by 8,000 to 139,000 vacancies. These two industries still had the highest number of vacancies of any industry sector this quarter.

When comparing October to December 2024 with the same time last year, total vacancies decreased by 118,000 (12.7%), with declines in 14 of the 18 industry sectors. The industries that decreased the most were human health and social work activities, down by 30,000 vacancies, and wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, down by 29,000 vacancies.

The total estimated number of vacancies remains 16,000 (2.0%) above its January to March 2020 pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic level. The two industry sectors that are currently the highest above their January to March 2020 levels are public admin and defence; compulsory social security, and professional scientific and technical activities, which have a combined 25,000 vacancies above this level.

Four industry sectors are currently below pre-pandemic levels, by a combined total of 50,000 vacancies. These include wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, which is 36,000 below its pre-pandemic level.

Growth decreased in four out of five industry size bands on the quarter. The largest decrease was in businesses with one to nine employees, down 8,000 (5.8%). All industry size bands decreased over the year. The largest percentage decrease (16.4%) was also in the smallest size band. The largest size band (businesses with 2,500 or more employees) remains the only size band below its January to March 2020 pre-pandemic level.

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

From our December 2024 labour market release, Labour Force Survey (LFS) periods from January to March 2019 onwards have been reweighted to incorporate the latest estimates of the size and composition of the UK population. The reweighting exercise creates a discontinuity in total workforce jobs, employee jobs, and self-employment jobs between December 2018 and March 2019, where there will be a step change. Therefore, comparisons with estimates from before March 2019 should be avoided. The LFS estimates are official statistics in development.

More information can be found in our Impact of reweighting on Labour Force Survey key indicators: December 2024 article.

The estimated number of WFJ in the UK for September 2024 was 36.8 million, and continues to be at a historically high levels, as described in our Vacancies and jobs in the UK: December 2024 bulletin. Between June 2024 and September 2024, there was an increase in employee jobs of 41,000 (0.1%). There was also an increase in self-employment jobs of 27,000 (0.6%), alongside a combined increase in government-supported trainees and HM armed forces of 4,000 (2.2%).

Employee jobs have been on a largely upward trend since September 2020 and are now at 32.3 million. Growth in the self-employment component of WFJ has been less consistent over the same period but has increased this quarter. Comparing with the equivalent period last year, WFJ are up by 364,000 (1.0%), with employee jobs up by 205,000 (0.6%) and self-employment jobs up by 161,000 (3.9%). Meanwhile, government-supported trainees and HM armed forces are showing a combined fall of 2,000 (1.1%).

Annually, growth in WFJ estimates has varied, with 11 of the 20 industry sectors above September 2023 levels. The largest rise was from human health and social work activities, which was up by 224,000 (4.6%). However, some industries showed an annual decline, with administrative and support service activities down by 112,000 (3.6%).

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 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 bulletins. 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 December of each year, regular adjustments are made to workforce jobs (WFJ) estimates to improve quality and coherence with other Office for National Statistics (ONS) business surveys, resulting in revisions to the series. Adjustments include benchmarking the short-term employee jobs series to the latest estimates from the annual Business Register and Employment Survey, incorporating revisions to Public Sector Employment estimates, Northern Ireland employee jobs estimates, government-supported trainees (GST) administrative data and Short-Term Employment Surveys estimates, and changes to seasonal parameters following a seasonal adjustment review.

Workforce jobs incorporate the reweighted LFS data from March 2019 onwards in this bulletin. The reweighting exercise creates a discontinuity in total workforce jobs, employee jobs, and self-employment jobs between December 2018 and March 2019, where there will be a step change. Therefore, total workforce jobs, employee jobs, and self-employment job comparisons should be avoided from before March 2019. The LFS estimates are official statistics in development.

More information can be found in our Revisions to workforce jobs, UK: December 2024 article and our Impact of reweighting on Labour Force Survey key indicators: December 2024 article.

LFS reweighting does not address the volatility we have seen in recent periods and that we expect to see to some extent in the future. We would advise caution when interpreting changes in headline rates and recommend using them as part of our suite of labour market indicators, alongside workforce jobs (WFJ), claimant count data, and Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) estimates.

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 our Vacancy Survey, a survey of employers.

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 Section 7: Measuring the data of 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 our 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 Section 8: Strengths and limitations of our Vacancies and jobs in the UK: April 2021 bulletin.