Advertised pay
£42,132.00
£40,746.62 in real terms (inflation-adjusted)
+13.9% vs Q1 2024
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Q1 2025 Jobs Market Report
Advertised pay rose 13.9% and hiring activity we tracked fell 72.9% compared with Q1 2024.
Hiring activity we tracked
95% permanent / 5% contract
-72.9% vs Q1 2024
vs Q4 2024
Pay +5.3%, hiring activity -47.5%
Advertised permanent pay rose solidly even as the overall volume of tracked hiring activity contracted sharply, with IT cementing its position as the dominant sector and one small Welsh authority posting an outsized surge in listings.
Permanent pay climbed despite a quieter market
+13.9%
Median advertised permanent pay in the hiring activity we tracked rose markedly compared with the same period a year earlier. This kind of pay growth alongside a much smaller pool of listings suggests employers were being more selective, with fewer but better-paid roles being advertised. It points to a market prioritising quality of hire over sheer volume.
Tracked hiring activity fell sharply
-72.9%
The overall volume of hiring activity we tracked dropped very steeply versus the comparison period, a scale of decline that stands out against the more modest shifts seen across most other measures. Read alongside rising permanent pay, this looks less like a broad hiring freeze and more like a market consolidating around fewer, higher-value roles. It is the single largest swing in this dataset and a useful headline for the quarter.
IT further extended its lead as the largest tracked sector
+2.48 pts
IT already accounted for by far the largest slice of tracked hiring activity, and its share grew further still, the biggest gain of any sector measured this period. That widening lead came at the expense of sectors like healthcare and construction, which each lost meaningful ground over the same period. It reinforces IT's position as the anchor sector within the hiring activity we tracked.
Healthcare's share pulled back
-2.35 pts
Healthcare's share of tracked hiring activity fell by one of the larger margins seen across any sector this period, even though it remains a sizeable share overall. This mirrors a broader pattern where growth concentrated in a handful of sectors, notably IT and engineering, while others gave up ground. It is worth watching whether this is a temporary rebalancing or the start of a longer pullback.
A small Welsh authority saw listings surge
+305.3%
Isle of Anglesey recorded by far the largest increase in tracked hiring activity of any area measured, dwarfing the changes seen elsewhere on the list. Given the modest base of listings involved, this reflects a low-volume area rather than a shift in a major employment centre, but the scale of the swing is still notable. It stands in sharp contrast to the steep declines seen in places like Thanet and Leicester.
AI-related job titles remain a niche slice of listings
+0.15%
Listings with an AI-related job title made up only a small fraction of the hiring activity we tracked. Despite considerable attention on AI-driven hiring, this suggests that roles explicitly branded around AI or machine learning are still a niche category rather than a mainstream job title convention. It is a useful baseline to track as the space matures.
Watch whether the pay growth we tracked persists as hiring volumes stabilise, and whether IT's widening share continues to pull weight away from sectors like healthcare and construction.
Sector movers
Change in each sector's share of the hiring activity we tracked, Q1 2024 to Q1 2025.
Growing
- IT+2.5% pts
- Engineering+2.3% pts
- Environmental+1.2% pts
Shrinking
- Healthcare-2.3% pts
- Construction-2.2% pts
- Recruitment-1.9% pts
Monthly trend
Within Q1 2025, hiring activity we tracked peaked in March 2025 (dark green below) and was quietest in February 2025 (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.