UK Hiring Rebounds but the Underlying Fragility Remains

Adzuna, the job matching platform known for its live labour-market data and salary transparency insights, has released new figures showing a modest but notable improvement in UK hiring activity. Its latest UK Job Market Report suggests February delivered the first monthly rise in vacancies since last summer, offering employers and HR teams a rare piece of positive news in an otherwise subdued market.

According to Adzuna’s data, vacancies rose by +4.41% month-on-month to 725,571. That makes February the strongest monthly increase since March 2025 and the first uplift after seven consecutive months of decline.

On the surface, that looks encouraging. But the wider picture remains fragile.

Vacancies are still down -15.57% year-on-year, the weakest annual performance since 2021. Competition for roles is edging up, youth hiring remains under pressure and the data was captured before any potential labour-market impact from the Middle East conflict.

For HR leaders, this is less a recovery story than a sign of a labour market still searching for stability.

A positive monthly signal does not cancel out the longer-term slowdown

The most encouraging part of the Adzuna report is that hiring has finally stopped moving in one direction. After months of contraction, even a modest rebound matters psychologically. It suggests some employers are still willing to recruit, particularly in sectors where talent demand remains acute.

But the annual picture is harder to ignore. Vacancies remain sharply down compared with February 2025, and total advertised roles are still roughly half the levels seen at the 2022 peak.

This makes February’s growth feel more like a pause in the decline than a genuine turning point.

As Andrew Hunter, Co-founder of Adzuna, put it, the latest figures offer “a rare moment of optimism in a market that has been contracting for months,” but the “underlying fragility hasn’t gone away.”

Teaching leads, but early-career demand still looks weak

One of the clearest winners in the February data is teaching, with vacancies up +10.4% month-on-month and +20.1% year-on-year. That reinforces the extent to which certain sectors are still hiring actively, even while the broader market softens.

The more worrying signal comes from graduate and entry-level hiring.

Graduate vacancies bounced +15.6% month-on-month from January’s low, but remain down -45.5% year-on-year. Entry-level roles are also still below last year’s levels. In a labour market already dealing with elevated youth unemployment, that matters.

For HR leaders, this raises a strategic concern. If early-career pathways continue to narrow, organisations may create capability gaps that become harder to fix later. Short-term hiring caution can easily turn into long-term talent shortages.

Pay is still rising, but that creates a different kind of pressure

Another major takeaway from the Adzuna data is that advertised salaries continue to rise.

Average pay reached £43,791 in February, up +1.16% month-on-month and +5.53% year-on-year, comfortably ahead of inflation. Sectors such as IT and HR & Recruitment posted especially strong salary growth.

That is good news for candidates, but it introduces a more complicated challenge for employers. Hiring fewer people at higher salary levels increases pressure on workforce planning, pay equity and internal benchmarking. It also raises the stakes around retention. Existing employees will compare internal pay progression with what they see in the external market.

Salary transparency remains part of that story. Although 45.72% of adverts now include pay details, more than half still do not. In a more competitive and more cautious labour market, opacity is likely to become harder to defend.

Regional differences are becoming more pronounced

The report also highlights how uneven the market has become across the UK.

Yorkshire & The Humber posted the strongest monthly vacancy growth at +8.62%, while Scotland and Wales continue to lag sharply on an annual basis. Yet those same regions are among the strongest performers on salary growth.

That creates a more complex hiring environment for national employers. Demand, competition and pay pressure are no longer moving in the same direction in every market. HR leaders relying on broad national assumptions risk missing what is happening locally.

What HR leaders should take from this now

The biggest mistake would be to treat February’s rise in vacancies as proof that the labour market has turned a corner.

A better reading is that the market remains selective, uneven and fragile. Hiring has improved in places, but the structural pressures remain. Graduate demand is weak, competition is still high and sector performance is diverging sharply.

For HR teams, that means three things matter now.

First, workforce planning needs to become more precise. Broad hiring assumptions are less useful in a market with this much variation.

Second, early-career strategy deserves urgent attention. If entry-level and graduate routes remain constrained, organisations may struggle to rebuild pipelines later.

Third, pay and transparency will matter more, not less. In a slower market, trust becomes a bigger differentiator.

February may have brought the first vacancy rise in months. But for HR leaders, the real headline is not recovery. It is complexity.

HRD Connect Curators of the New Business Landscape. HRD Connect produces industry-recognized content for senior HR leaders. Through articles, case studies, Q&As, podcasts, events, and more, we offer truly progressive and cutting-edge insights designed to help people leaders address core HR challenges and add greater value to their business.

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