Advertised pay
£41,000.00
£39,575.29 in real terms (inflation-adjusted)
+2.5% vs Q4 2024
List your job here
Reach thousands of UK professionals comparing salaries and making their next career move. List your job here and put your role in front of candidates already researching your sector.
Q4 2025 Jobs Market Report
Advertised pay rose 2.5% and hiring activity we tracked fell 37.8% compared with Q4 2024.
Hiring activity we tracked
97% permanent / 3% contract
-37.8% vs Q4 2024
vs Q3 2025
Pay 0.0%, hiring activity -8.7%
Tracked hiring activity cooled sharply through Q4 2025 even as pay for permanent roles kept climbing, with logistics and a handful of outlying regions bucking the broader slowdown.
Hiring activity slows sharply
-37.8%
Total hiring activity we tracked fell substantially versus the comparison period, marking one of the steepest pullbacks in the dataset. The scale of the drop suggests employers pulled back on posting new roles broadly, rather than the decline being concentrated in a single corner of the market.
Permanent pay keeps climbing despite the slowdown
+2.5%
Advertised permanent pay rose over the period even as the volume of hiring activity we tracked contracted. That combination points to employers competing harder on pay for the roles they are still filling, rather than a market where both volume and pay are retreating together.
Logistics share jumps dramatically
+15.5 pts
Logistics' share of tracked hiring activity increased by a wide margin, among the largest sector moves in the period. This stands out against the overall pullback in hiring activity, suggesting logistics roles held up or grew even as other sectors retrenched.
South Staffordshire sees an outsized activity spike
+412.8%
Tracked hiring activity in South Staffordshire grew enormously compared with the prior period, the largest regional swing we recorded. Given the modest base of tracked jobs there, a small number of employers ramping up postings could account for much of the move.
AI-related job titles remain a niche slice of postings
+0.19%
Listings carrying an explicit AI-related title made up only a sliver of tracked postings. Even amid heavy attention on AI-driven hiring, the practical footprint in advertised job titles we tracked remains very small.
IT's share of hiring activity pulls back
-4.92 pts
IT's share of tracked hiring activity declined notably even though it remains the largest single sector by share. The pullback aligns with the broader contraction in overall hiring activity rather than signalling an IT-specific slump.
Watch whether the logistics surge and regional spikes prove durable into Q1 2026 or unwind as quickly as they appeared, and whether pay growth continues to hold even as overall hiring activity stays subdued.
Sector movers
Change in each sector's share of the hiring activity we tracked, Q4 2024 to Q4 2025.
Growing
- Logistics+15.5% pts
- Consulting+2.2% pts
- Accounting+1.7% pts
Shrinking
- Engineering-5.1% pts
- IT-4.9% pts
- Recruitment-2.9% pts
Monthly trend
Within Q4 2025, hiring activity we tracked peaked in November 2025 (dark green below) and was quietest in December 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.