UK graduates and healthcare workers worst hit as jobs market ‘cools’ | Work & careers

According to the analysis of the leading recruitment data provider, fresh graduates from the university will have difficulty finding a job after a 35% decrease in recruitment by employers last year.

Renting freezing in many employers received the biggest fee for graduates and meant that there was a violent competition for the few jobs for young workers.

Adzuna’s data, health workers and teachers have also emerged among the largest victims of a wider slowdown in the number of employers looking for new staff.

The general labor market, according to the figures of the firm, “cooling, does not collapse”, salary growth continues to leave inflation behind despite an annual decrease in general gaps.

However, the scale of difficulty for job seekers varies significantly depending on where they are in the country and what jobs they want to do.

Although the overall decrease in empty positions is modest, the conditions for graduates and sectors, including conditions, are more acute, while the number of empty positions for warehouse workers and cleaners has increased sharply.

Graduate recruitment tendency is particularly gloom, the gaps advertised increases by 8% in August, less than 8% of the previous month and lower than one third of last year.

In employment, education or training (NEET), the number of people under the age of 25 has increased sharply since PANDEM, and the peak at 971,000 last year and fell to 948,000 by June 2025 in three months. In 2019, it was below 800,000.

Recently, the business site said that graduates in the UK have been facing the most challenging labor market since 2018 and that they have paused the recruitment of employers and used AI to reduce costs.

Health services and teaching continue to be among the most difficult regions of the labor market, and after a decrease of more than 10% in July, empty positions in the health sector decrease by 6.7%. Teacher gaps decreased by 6.4% in August, while hospitality decreased by 6.5%.

The expectations of job seekers have also changed significantly depending on the fact that they are in the UK. In the southwest, there were 1.3 people competing for every job, the Southeast was recorded 1.46.

But the picture in the northeast was much more difficult. There, 3.36 people fought in each gap, then 3.25 in Northern Ireland and 3.14 in Western Midlands.

Senior figures in retail and hospitality industries Recently, job seekers have increased the concerns that they faced assembly difficultiesReferring to factors, including higher costs for employers after the increase in artificial intelligence (AI) and last year’s budget.

While the highest level of unemployment is at 4.7%of the four years, Adzununa’s figures showed that the average number of job seekers per space throughout England increased slightly from 1.93 to 2.

In general, the number of existing positions fell to 846,567 in August, both below 2.1% of the previous month and below 1.3% of the same month of last year.

The annual decline ended a five -month run, where the number of empty positions increased each year.

Business Platform, the last report, “employers want to pay the ongoing increases by pointing to the ongoing increases,” cooling, pointing to a labor market that does not collapse, “he said.

The average salaries advertised continued to rise faster than inflation, increased by 8.9% last year to £ 42,367 and Scotland recorded the fastest growth, increased by 12.15% to £ 39.127.

The figures also show changing trends in the labor market.

The decline in the number of health service gaps means that the roles in the sector are no longer the heaviest advertisements. Instead, the warehouse workers climbed to the summit of the rankings.

The fastest increase in empty positions was followed by human resources and recruitment (5.1%) and retail (3.7%) in the internal aid and cleaning sector with an increase of 6.8%.

Adzuna’s founding partner, Andrew Hunted, said that the recruitment appetite has been irregular and increasingly shaped with a mixture of sector -specific swing and increasing role in the UK labor market ”.

“Recalling that the market is still balanced as developing technologies, changing skill demand, and macroeconomic conditions continue to redefine where and how employers are hired.”

The average duration of filling a role reached 37.3 days in August, almost a day longer than 36.3 days of the previous month.

The hospitality and catering roles were filled almost a week faster than the previous month, and on average 31.9 days compared to 38.4 days, the roles slowed sharply slowed down and lasted 50 days compared to 40.3 days.

Employers also sought transparency about what to pay the candidates. In August, 43.9% of business ads fell from 45% in July, reversing the latest developments in the summer months, including payment details.