UK graduate jobs drop below 10,000 for first time, report says

LONDON – Job vacancies in Britain dropped to their lowest in five years and graduate posts fell to a record low as hiring weakened in January amid mounting concerns about the labour market.

Employers advertised 694,940 jobs, a 3.05 per cent fall in the month that continued the downward trend from 2025, online job search site Adzuna said. It was the worst reading since January 2021.

Graduate jobs plunged 19.1 per cent to below 10,000 for the first time since Adzuna started tracking the metric in April 2016. 

“The market remains challenging, with fewer vacancies and intense competition, but continued wage growth suggests employers are still willing to pay for the right skills,” said Mr Andrew Hunter, the firm’s co-founder.

The average salary reached £43,289 (S$74,017) in January, up 5.98 per cent year on year, Adzuna said – above the Bank of England’s 3.25 per cent estimate of non-inflationary stable wage growth.

The findings will add to fears that Britain’s labour market is fast unwinding, with young people hit hardest.

Bank of England rate setters have recently raised concerns about rising unemployment, which has climbed to 5.2 per cent from 4.7 per cent in the past six months.

Labour’s hikes to the minimum wage and payroll taxes have been blamed, as well as its plans for stricter employment rights. Artificial intelligence also appears to be replacing entry-level jobs, which fell 4.46 per cent month on month, according to Adzuna.

Economists are hoping AI and improved business investment spark a recovery in Britain’s feeble productivity, a measure of output per worker that is vital to raising living standards.

Research published on Feb 23 by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) found that Britain’s biggest industries have been responsible for the decades-long decline in productivity that has roughly halved the gross domestic product growth rate since the end of the 1990s.

Finance, manufacturing, communications and retail have fallen behind the “productivity frontier” over the past two decades, reversing the catch-up achieved between 1997 and 2007, BCG said.

The situation has been made worse by an increase in the number of underperforming small firms despite technological advances.

There are more low productivity small companies in Britain today than in 1997 and they are on average less productive than three decades ago.

The BCG study highlights the scale of the challenge Britain faces to reverse its productivity trend and close the gap with the United States and other economies. bloomberg