Key Points
- UK job postings are 8% below pre-pandemic levels, though hiring demand has stabilised in recent weeks.
- Pay pressures remain strong despite recent easing, particularly for lower-paid jobs. Customer service and retail jobs have experienced the fastest wage increases.
- Opportunities for remote work remain relatively abundant. Four-day work weeks are still rare across the overall job market but are gaining traction in sectors like childcare, veterinary and wellness that typically offer fewer remote roles.
Our Labour Market Updates examine important trends using Indeed and other labour market data. Our recently introduced European Labour Market Overview chartbook provides a more comprehensive view of the European labour market. Other data, including the Indeed Wage Tracker, are regularly updated and can be accessed on our data portal.
While the UK labour market continues to cool, it remains an active market. Hiring demand has slowed, but constrained labour supply continues to support strong posted wage growth, particularly for lower-paid jobs.
Spotlight: Low-remote jobs more likely to offer four-day weeks
Four-day work weeks remain a niche part of the jobs market, with just 0.8% of postings mentioning such arrangements. But the trend has risen over the past five years. The occupations most likely to offer four-day work weeks are the ones least likely to offer remote or hybrid flexibility. The share of postings in the low-remote tier offering four-day weeks stood at 1.0% at the end of August, compared to 0.8% and 0.6% in the high- and middle-remote tiers, respectively.
In-person categories including veterinary (15.4% of postings mention a four-day work week), childcare (3.1%), dental (2.2%) and beauty & wellness (1.6%) are the occupations most likely to note four-day work weeks in postings. Offering alternative forms of flexibility remains an important tool in talent attraction and retention where remote work is less feasible.
Remote postings share edges lower but remains well up on pre-pandemic
Amid debate over returning to the office, the share of job postings mentioning remote or hybrid flexibility remains more than three times higher than pre-pandemic levels, despite a modest decline from 16% in May to 14.4% in August.
Labour market remains somewhat tight
The latest ONS figures showed further gradual cooling in the labour market. For over two years, vacancies have fallen continuously from former peaks. Regular wage growth eased to 5.1% year-on-year in July, though that remains higher than the 3-3.5% range that policymakers at the Bank of England would like to see.
The ratio of unemployed people to vacancies stands at 1.6, up from a low of 1.0 back in 2022, but still signalling a somewhat tight labour market. One contributor is the persistently higher inactivity seen versus pre-pandemic, with more than 700,000 people neither in work nor actively seeking employment than just before COVID-19.
Subdued job postings trend
Indeed data points to subdued hiring demand, though the trend has broadly stabilised in the past three weeks. After peaking at almost 70% above pre-pandemic levels in early 2022, UK job postings on Indeed fell to 8% below their 1 February 2020, pre-pandemic baseline by mid-September.
High-frequency economic data suggests the UK economy has gained momentum in the third quarter. Post-election political stability and hopes of further interest rate cuts have helped to support confidence in the recovery. If sustained, brisker growth could support an improvement in hiring demand over the coming months. However, uncertainties remain ahead of October’s Budget and ongoing volatility surrounding geopolitical developments, including November’s US presidential election.
Posted wage growth remains strong
Indeed Wage Tracker data suggests that pay pressures for new hires remain strong, though down slightly from June’s high. Annual posted wage growth was steady at 6.7% in August, lower than the peak of 7.0% seen at the end of the second quarter. UK posted wage growth continues to run considerably hotter than in the euro area (3.9%) and the US (3.3%).
Pay pressures remain strongest at the lower-paid end of the labour market. The bottom third of occupations experienced posted wage growth of 7.6% year-on-year in August, compared with 6.3% for middle-wage jobs and 5.5% for high-wage jobs. That disparity contrasts with the situation in the US, where posted wage growth is running at similar rates across wage tiers.
Customer service (8.9%), retail, and cleaning & sanitation (both 8.3%) were the UK occupations with the highest posted wage growth in August.
Conclusion
Evidence from the labour market remains key to the timing of any further monetary easing. The Bank of England held interest rates at 5% at their September meeting – as expected – following August’s first quarter-point reduction from their 15-year high.
With the closely-watched service sector inflation metric remaining higher than Bank policymakers would like, they will be keen to see signs of further easing in wage pressures to reassure them that they can cut rates further without reigniting inflation. But posted wage growth remains robust, particularly at the lower-paid end of the market where hiring challenges are most persistent. That means rates are likely to be cut only gradually.
Meanwhile, employers looking to recruit must be mindful of remaining competitive on pay and flexibility to help them get the talent they need.
Hiring Lab Data
Job postings data is available on our Data Portal. We also host the underlying job-postings chart data on Github as downloadable CSV files. Typically, it will be updated with the latest data one day after this blog post is published.
Methodology
Data on seasonally adjusted Indeed job postings are an index of the number of seasonally adjusted job postings on a given day, using a seven-day trailing average. Feb. 1, 2020, is our pre-pandemic baseline, so the index is set to 100 on that day. We seasonally adjust each series based on historical patterns in 2017, 2018, and 2019. We adopted this methodology in January 2021. Data for several dates in 2021 and 2022 are missing and were interpolated. Non-seasonally adjusted data are calculated in a similar manner, except that the data are not adjusted to historical patterns. Note that we have recently restated the historical JPI data for several countries, including the UK, due to a methodology change.
To calculate the average rate of wage growth, we follow an approach similar to the Atlanta Fed US Wage Growth Tracker, but we track jobs, not individuals. We begin by calculating the median posted wage for each country, month, job title, region and salary type (hourly, monthly or annual). Within each country, we then calculate year-on-year wage growth for each job title-region-salary type combination, generating a monthly distribution. Our monthly measure of wage growth for the country is the median of that distribution.
The number of job postings on Indeed.com, whether related to paid or unpaid job solicitations, is not indicative of potential revenue or earnings of Indeed, which comprises a significant percentage of the HR Technology segment of its parent company, Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd. Job posting numbers are provided for information purposes only and should not be viewed as an indicator of performance of Indeed or Recruit. Please refer to the Recruit Holdings investor relations website and regulatory filings in Japan for more detailed information on revenue generation by Recruit’s HR Technology segment.
