The UK jobs market continued to show signs of recovery in May, with vacancies rising for a fourth consecutive month, but the outlook for graduates has deteriorated further.

New figures from job matching platform Adzuna show UK vacancies increased by 2.85% month-on-month to 799,737 in May, extending the first sustained run of growth since the downturn began in mid-2025. The improvement has narrowed the annual decline in vacancies to 6.84%, compared with a fall of 16.1% in January.

The figures correspond with the latest Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) Labour Market Tracker, which last week reported there were 1.62 million active job postings across the UK in May, up 0.8% from April and 8% higher than a year earlier.

Even so, the recovery remains narrow and uneven, the Adzuna data suggested. Just four sectors – domestic help and cleaning, travel, teaching and trade and construction – posted genuine annual vacancy growth in May, while several of the UK’s biggest hiring sectors continued to contract sharply.

Domestic help and cleaning was the best performer, with vacancies up 382% year-on-year and rising a further 27.7% month-on-month in May. Average salaries in the sector also climbed 9.3% over the year to £30,799. Teaching, the largest sector on Adzuna by a wide margin, recorded 217,275 vacancies in May, up 28.5% year-on-year, although the monthly figure dipped 1.6%. Trade and construction vacancies rose 26.6% annually, while travel posted a striking 132% annual increase, though Adzuna said that figure is flattered by a very low base in 2025 rather than signalling a genuine hiring boom.

By contrast, healthcare and nursing vacancies were down 33.3% year-on-year, hospitality; catering fell 32.2%; and logistics and warehouse declined 31.8%. However, these three sectors remain among the UK’s largest employers.

Salary growth also appeared to be cooling after months of steady gains. The average advertised salary edged down 0.22% month-on-month to £43,998 in May, although it remained 3.76% higher than a year earlier and comfortably ahead of inflation. In London average advertised salaries reached £51,319, up 5.42% annually and making it the only UK region above the £50,000 mark.

Competition for jobs eased in May. The number of jobseekers per vacancy fell to 2.14 from 2.22 in April, the lowest level since the downturn intensified. The average time to fill a role also improved, falling to 35 days from 39 days in Adzuna’s April report. Admin roles were the quickest to fill at 32.0 days, followed by legal at 32 days and maintenance at 33 days. Graduate roles remained the slowest to fill at 41 days.

Graduate vacancies fell 9.6% month-on-month and 42% year-on-year to just 8,398 in May, the steepest annual decline Adzuna has recorded. Graduate salaries also slipped to £25,773 from £26,126 in April. Entry-level vacancies softened too, falling 4.2% month-on-month to 209,448, while average salaries were broadly flat at £38,959.

Salary transparency remained close to historic lows, with just 41% of UK job ads including salary details in May, unchanged from April and down from 43% a year earlier. That means more than half of all vacancies – 59% – are still advertised without pay information.

Andrew Hunter, co-founder of Adzuna, said: “May’s figures confirm what we’ve been hinting at for months – this is now a genuine, sustained recovery, not a blip. Four consecutive months of vacancy growth has pulled the annual decline in from –16% in January to under -7% today. But let’s not get carried away: that recovery is narrow, driven by a handful of sectors like teaching, trade and construction and domestic help and cleaning, while areas like healthcare, hospitality and logistics are still shrinking fast. And for graduates, the picture is getting worse, not better. The market is healing, but unevenly, and young people entering the workforce this summer are bearing the brunt of it.”

 

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