Advertised pay
£36,750.00
£35,268.71 in real terms (inflation-adjusted)
+5.0% vs 2022
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2023 Jobs Market Review
Advertised pay rose 5.0% and hiring activity we tracked fell 36.6% compared with 2022.
Hiring activity we tracked
97% permanent / 3% contract
-36.6% vs 2022
Pay for tracked permanent roles rose meaningfully even as overall tracked hiring activity pulled back sharply, with the sector mix shifting notably and one outlying local area posting extraordinary growth.
Permanent pay climbs despite a quieter market
+5%
Advertised permanent pay for roles we tracked rose solidly compared with the prior period, a notable move given the broader slowdown in tracked hiring activity over the same stretch. This suggests employers who continued to advertise permanent roles were still willing to raise offered pay, even as overall tracked volume cooled.
Tracked hiring activity falls sharply
-36.6%
Total tracked hiring activity dropped substantially versus the comparison period, one of the largest swings in this dataset. A pullback of this scale points to a considerably more subdued advertising environment overall, even where pay for the roles still being advertised held up.
Engineering's share pulls back the most
-2.86 pts
Engineering's share of tracked hiring activity fell more than any other sector we tracked, even though it remained one of the larger categories overall. The decline suggests engineering roles cooled relative to other sectors rather than vanishing outright.
Healthcare gains ground in the mix
+2.16 pts
Healthcare's share of tracked hiring activity increased more than almost any other sector, building on an already meaningful base. This points to healthcare roles becoming relatively more prominent within the tracked mix, even as overall activity contracted.
One local area sees an outsized surge
+393.9%
Ards and North Down stood out with an extraordinary increase in tracked hiring activity, far outpacing every other area in this dataset. A jump of this scale from a modest base is likely to reflect a handful of concentrated hiring drives rather than a broad-based regional trend, so it's worth treating as a local outlier rather than a signal for the wider area.
AI-titled roles remain a niche sliver
+0.06%
Listings with an explicitly AI-related job title made up only a tiny fraction of tracked hiring activity. Despite heavy attention on AI elsewhere, this suggests that formal AI-specific job titles had barely registered as a distinct hiring category within the roles we tracked.
Watch whether pay growth persists alongside subdued hiring activity, and whether the healthcare/engineering share shift and the localized regional surge prove durable or one-off.
Sector movers
Change in each sector's share of the hiring activity we tracked, 2022 to 2023.
Growing
- Healthcare+2.2% pts
- IT+1.5% pts
- Sales+0.7% pts
Shrinking
- Engineering-2.9% pts
- Recruitment-1.5% pts
- Accounting-1.2% pts
Monthly trend
Within 2023, hiring activity we tracked peaked in February 2023 (dark green below) and was quietest in November 2023 (dark red below).
Based on job listings and advertised salaries we track across the UK. Figures are indicative trends, not a full census of the UK jobs market.