Continuous growth in job adverts for skilled occupations as recovery continues

• In the week of 21-27 June, there a total of 1.55 million active job adverts in the UK.  
• With 192,000 new job postings in the same week, employers demand remains buoyant and at a level higher than before the onset of lockdown in March 2020.
• Higher demand for roles in education sector, as well as more adverts for professional and skilled occupations at the end of June.   
• Thurrock, and the London boroughs of Haringey and Islington were the hiring hotspots in the week of 21-27 June.
• East Dunbartonshire recorded the biggest fall in active job postings, followed by Isle of Anglesey (-8.3%). Four out of the bottom ten local areas for growth in active job postings came from Northern Ireland. 

According to the Recruitment & Employment Confederation’s latest Jobs Recovery Tracker, there were 192,000 new job adverts posted in the week of 21-27 June. This gives us a total of 1.55 million active job postings in the UK at the end of June. 

The data shows that the higher rate of growth in job postings driven by the re-opening of industries that were shut during the pandemic, like the hospitality and leisure sectors, has now levelled off to a steady rate, higher than to the levels we’ve seen before the pandemic began in March 2020.

Neil Carberry, Chief Executive of the REC, said:

“Sustained momentum in our jobs market is great news, but vacancies and unemployment don’t just resolve themselves – it takes support to help people find their new role. Rising job adverts for roles that require key skills to get hired – from IT to haulage – highlight the ongoing need to put the skills and job search support people need in place. Tackling this mis-match, in the context of a tightening labour market, should be a priority for government and businesses, working together. 

“We need to act now to make sure we do the right thing for jobseekers and our economy. That means a plan that reforms the skills system by listening to business about what is really needed, like changes to the apprenticeship levy. It also includes ensuring job search support programmes are effective and get people to work quickly. And it should acknowledge where shortages are so severe our only option is adding roles to the immigration shortage occupation list, which is overdue a refresh.”
 

In the week of 21-27 June, market research interviewers (+15.7%) was the occupation with the highest weekly increase in active job postings. There was also a growth in adverts for teaching and other education professional (+13.6%), school midday and crossing patrol occupations (+8.2%) and school secretaries (+6.3) due to the likely seasonal demand within the education sector.  

At at local level, Thurrock (+4.9 %) was the top hiring hotspot in the week of 21-27 June, while other local areas in the UK have recorded a more marginal increase. With seven out of the top ten areas for growth in active job postings London has finally started to pick up on other local areas in the UK.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, East Dunbartonshire (-10%) saw the steepest fall in active job postings, followed closely by  Isle of Anglesey (-8.3%). The next four areas on the list all came from Northern Ireland. Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon (-7.2%), Ards and North Down (-7.0%), Mid Ulster (-6.6%) and Fermanagh and Omagh (-6.2%). 

Matthew Mee, Director, Workforce Intelligence at Emsi said:

“At 192,000 new job postings in the last week, employer demand continues to track above levels seen just before the shutdown of the economy in March 2020, when there were around 180,000 new job postings per week. Perhaps the most noticeable shift in this last week is in London and the South East. 

“Both these areas had seen the biggest regional falls in employer demand over the last year, but this week’s ten hotspots for growth are dominated by local authorities in these regions, such as Thurrock, Haringey and Islington, Croydon, Tower Hamlets, and Westminster. Despite this, London as a whole is still tracking behind March 2020 levels, and so it remains to be seen whether the growth seen in these areas this week is a blip, or part of a longer-term trend in which we see employer demand in London and its commuter belt return to pre-Covid levels.”

Ends

Notes to editors:

1. The Jobs Recovery Tracker is produced by the REC in partnership with Emsi, using their Job Postings Analytics data which is harvested from tens of thousands of job boards. Data was harvested between 14 and 27 June 2021. For more details, see the attached annexes which, in league table format, detail the top and bottom ten county/unitary authorities for growth in job postings and growth by occupation type.
2. ‘Active’ job postings are those which were live online during the specified time period. ‘New’ job postings are those which were added to the active stock during the specified time period.

For more information and interview enquiries, contact the REC Press Office on 020 7009 2157, 020 7009 2129 or pressoffice@rec.uk.com. Outside of regular office hours, please call 07702 568 829.

About Emsi

Emsi’s goal is to help local, regional and national economies function more effectively through helping people make better decisions relating to the world of work. To achieve this, we employ a team of expert economists, data scientists and software programmers to build a dataset that is highly granular, extremely robust, and easy to use. Emsi was founded in Idaho in 2000 and now serves clients in the US, UK, Canada and Australia. Find out more at www.economicmodelling.co.uk.

ANNEXES

Top ten and bottom ten county/unitary authorities for growth in job postings:

Top ten and bottom ten occupations by growth in job postings:

Key indicator occupations