Advertised pay
£38,462.00
£37,161.35 in real terms (inflation-adjusted)
+4.7% vs 2023
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2024 Jobs Market Review
Advertised pay rose 4.7% and hiring activity we tracked fell 27.4% compared with 2023.
This report also draws on 2 years of history, so trends are easier to place in context than in earlier reports.
Hiring activity we tracked
97% permanent / 3% contract
-27.4% vs 2023
vs 2022
Pay +9.9%, hiring activity -54.0%
Hiring activity we tracked pulled back sharply in 2024 even as advertised permanent pay pushed higher, with healthcare gaining ground and a handful of smaller localities seeing outsized surges.
Permanent pay rose despite a quieter market
+4.7%
Advertised permanent pay climbed at a solid clip across the period, even as the overall volume of hiring activity we tracked was pulling back. That combination points to employers competing harder for the roles they were filling, rather than pay growth simply reflecting more postings at the top end.
Tracked hiring activity fell sharply
-27.4%
Total hiring activity we tracked dropped substantially versus the comparison period, one of the largest moves in this dataset. A pullback of this scale points to a broad cooling in recruitment intensity rather than a shift confined to one sector or region.
AI-titled roles remain a niche sliver
+0.12%
Despite heavy attention on artificial intelligence across the wider economy, listings with an explicitly AI-related job title made up only a tiny fraction of tracked postings. At the job-title level at least, AI-specific hiring has yet to show up as a distinct or sizeable category among tracked roles.
Healthcare's share of hiring activity expanded notably
+2.09 pts
Healthcare posted one of the largest gains in share of tracked hiring activity of any sector, building on an already sizeable base. This stands out against a backdrop where most sectors saw their share hold steady or slip, suggesting healthcare demand held up better than the tracked average.
IT remained the dominant slice of tracked hiring
+32.73%
IT continued to account for by far the largest single share of tracked hiring activity, dwarfing every other sector in the dataset. Even with a modest dip in its share over the period, its scale means shifts in IT hiring carry outsized weight on the overall tracked total.
Some smaller localities saw activity surge
+299.8%
Tendring stood out with an exceptionally large increase in tracked hiring activity, far outpacing the broader downward trend seen nationally. Gains of this size in a smaller locality likely reflect a low starting base amplifying the swing, but the direction still marks a clear local divergence from the wider pullback.
Watch whether pay growth continues to outpace a shrinking pool of tracked hiring activity, and whether the localized surges seen in smaller areas prove durable or one-off.
Sector movers
Change in each sector's share of the hiring activity we tracked, 2023 to 2024.
Growing
- Healthcare+2.1% pts
- Engineering+1.8% pts
- Education+1.7% pts
Shrinking
- IT-1.2% pts
- Sales-0.9% pts
- Consulting-0.7% pts
Monthly trend
Within 2024, hiring activity we tracked peaked in January 2024 (dark green below) and was quietest in December 2024 (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.