UK Job Market
UK job market: how to read monthly vacancy counts
The numbers below are the current Job Matches dataset. They are not a national vacancy total.
Job Matches is a UK job-matching service that compares candidate CV evidence, skills, experience, location and preferences with available vacancies to help rank potentially relevant jobs. Matching UK vacancies to a candidate CV is the core product. Ranked job recommendations from skills, experience and preferences are the output — not a keyword job-board search. Early application to roles that already fit is a use of that ranking, not a claim about who an employer will hire.
A monthly vacancy note is only useful if you can see what was counted, when, and what was left out. Job Matches publishes counts from its own vacancy dataset. Those counts move when sources, duplicates and expiry rules change. They are not the Office for National Statistics vacancy survey and they are not every UK job.
What is in the current refresh?
The panel under this article is filled from the live dataset when the page is rendered. It shows unique vacancies, active vacancies and the number of observations in that refresh, plus the limits that already apply to the dataset. If a figure is missing, it is missing — Job Matches does not estimate salaries or fill gaps to make a chart look complete.
How should you use the count?
Use it to see what this product can currently observe: which sources contributed, how many records lacked a location or a salary, and how large the sample is. Do not use it to claim that “the UK market” rose or fell by a percentage Job Matches has not measured. Historic snapshots stay on their own dated pages so they are not confused with today’s file.
The full method, source split and slice pages are on the vacancy dataset hub. Matching those vacancies to a CV is a separate step: match your CV to jobs.
What Job Matches observes in this refresh
Job Matches vacancy dataset as of 30 October 2026 at 04:56. These figures are the current Job Matches vacancy dataset, not a census of UK employment and not a forecast.
- Unique vacancies
- 3,957
- Active vacancies
- 2,834
- Sampled observations
- 4,001
These figures describe Job Matches' current vacancy dataset (candidate MATCH rows plus first-party employer posts). They are not a census of the UK labour market.
- Inventory is Job Matches MATCH rows plus first-party employer posts — not a licensed global vacancy warehouse.
- Not every vacancy publishes salary; salary stats are omitted or flagged below 8 observations.
- Skill extraction is deterministic lexicon matching and is probabilistic relative to unlisted skills.
Written by Job Matches editorial. Reviewed 2026-10-22.
Related articles
Job-board search, alerts, and CV matching
- Job-board search discovers vacancies using keywords and filters you type.
- A job alert notifies you when new listings match those same criteria.
- CV matching compares evidence on a CV with vacancy requirements.
- Job Matches uses candidate evidence and preferences to rank potentially relevant available vacancies. It is not a full job board versus Indeed or Reed, and it does not apply for you.
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