The UK had 691,000 vacancies in July to September 2026, the first time the total has been below 700,000 since the spring of 2021, and there were 2.4 unemployed people for every one of them. The shortage story of 2023 has become a different story, a market with more candidates per role in most sectors and a few places where demand still outruns supply. This page sets out where the demand is in 2026, from the Office for National Statistics, and what it means for the people doing the hiring.
The picture in one paragraph
Vacancies fell by 21,000 on the quarter and by 37,000 on the year. They fell in 14 of the 18 industry sectors the ONS measures. The UK vacancy rate, the share of all jobs that are unfilled and being recruited for, was 2.1%. The unemployment to vacancy ratio, which shows how many people are looking for each unfilled job, was 2.4, down from the 2.5 where it had sat since the autumn of 2025 and the same as a year ago. At the tightest point of 2022 the ONS counted about one unemployed person for every vacancy. Every figure on this page is from the ONS release of 20 October 2026, linked at the foot.
Where demand is still high
The ONS measures demand as the vacancy rate for each industry, and two sectors stand out. Mining and quarrying had the highest rate in the country at 3.3%, and financial and insurance activities the second at 2.9%, both well above the national 2.1%. Those are the sectors where an employer still competes for people and where a recruiter's network still earns its fee. Health and social work remains the largest employer in the country by jobs, at more than five million, so even a steady vacancy rate there means a large number of roles to fill every quarter.
Where demand has cooled
Construction had the largest fall of any sector in the quarter, down 7,000 vacancies, a fifth of its total, and it lost 23,000 jobs in the three months to June, most of them self-employed. Other service activities fell by a similar proportion. Over the year, professional, scientific and technical work lost 9,000 vacancies and education 7,000, and water supply and waste had the largest percentage fall. The sectors with the lowest demand for workers were arts, entertainment and recreation at 1.4% and education at 1.5%.
The small firm story
The clearest signal in the release is who has stopped hiring. Businesses with one to nine employees cut their vacancies by 21,000 in a single quarter, to 77,000, the lowest level for that size of business outside the pandemic since 2013. Over the year they are down by a third. The ONS says feedback from its Vacancy Survey continues to suggest that smaller firms may not be recruiting because of increases in labour costs. For a recruitment agency whose clients are small businesses, that is the market in one line.
What it means for hiring
For an agency, a loosening market changes the job from finding candidates to choosing between them, and the client who can afford to choose will choose the agency whose process shows its working. The shortlist, the interview record and the written reason for each decision matter more when there are more applicants, because the six-month window for a tribunal claim now runs from the decision. For an in-house team, the same figures argue for keeping the roles that are still hard to fill, in finance, in skilled technical work and in care, on a named recruiter's desk rather than an advert, and for treating the rest with a lighter process. In both cases the person who reads the ONS release each month knows where the market is before the client does, and that is the point of reading it.
Three questions people ask
Is there still a skills shortage in the UK in 2026? In most sectors, no, by the ONS's own measure. With 2.4 unemployed people for every vacancy and vacancies falling in 14 of 18 sectors, the general shortage of 2022 and 2023 has passed. Specific shortages remain where the vacancy rate is high, in financial and insurance work and in mining and quarrying, and in roles that need a licence or a registration that takes years to earn.
Which sector has the most vacancies? The ONS publishes the vacancy rate by industry rather than a league table of counts in its bulletin. The highest rates in July to September 2026 were mining and quarrying at 3.3% and financial and insurance activities at 2.9%. The full table by industry is in the ONS dataset VACS02, released with the bulletin.
Where do the figures come from? The ONS Vacancy Survey, a survey of employers, published monthly in Vacancies and jobs in the UK. The next release is 17 November 2026. BIOR reads each release on the morning it appears and the Chart of the Week on our LinkedIn page carries the ratio.
Sources
Vacancies and jobs in the UK: October 2026 (ONS, 20 October 2026). Labour market overview, UK: October 2026 (ONS). Vacancies by industry, dataset VACS02 (ONS). Agencies can check the Employment Rights Act dates that bear on hiring at ior.org/employment-rights-act-timeline.
Written by The BIOR Membership Team. First published 9 March 2023. Rewritten with the October 2026 figures and last reviewed 21 October 2026.