UK job vacancies

Most people think about job vacancies when they are looking for work. Employers, economists and journalists follow them too. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) counts vacancies across the UK every month. This page explains what those numbers measure and what the latest ones show.

What counts as a vacancy

ONS counts a job as a vacancy when an employer is actively looking for someone from outside the business to fill it. Advertising the job or interviewing for it both count. Each month ONS writes to about 6,100 businesses with a single question. They give the total number of vacancies they had on a set date near the start of the month.

Statisticians then estimate the total for the whole economy from those answers. They leave out employment agencies, so that the same job is counted once. They also leave out farming, forestry and fishing, where most firms are very small. ONS has run the survey since April 2001.

The latest numbers

ONS published its latest vacancy numbers on 15 September 2026. Employers had an estimated 702,000 vacancies in June to August 2026. That was 8,000 fewer than in March to May 2026. It was 36,000 fewer than in the same months a year earlier. ONS says it is the lowest level since February to April 2021.

The numbers come from a sample, so ONS gives a margin of about 32,000 either side of the estimate. Its next release is due on 20 October 2026.

Two ways to read the total

Economists often compare vacancies with the number of people looking for work. In May to July 2026 there were 2.5 unemployed people for every vacancy. A year earlier there were 2.3. When that number rises, employers have more people to choose from.

ONS also publishes a vacancy rate. It shows vacancies as a share of all jobs, filled and unfilled. The rate was 2.1% in June to August 2026. ONS used to publish vacancies per 100 employee jobs instead. It moved fully to the vacancy rate with the September 2026 release.

Small employers

Businesses with 1 to 9 employees had 91,000 vacancies in June to August 2026. That was 7,000 fewer than in the previous three months, a fall of 7.5%. Over the year, their vacancies fell by 28,000, or 23.5%. Businesses answering the survey suggest that smaller firms may be holding back on hiring because their labour costs have gone up.

Differences between industries

Employers in some industries are looking for more workers than others, for their size. In June to August 2026 the highest vacancy rate was in mining and quarrying, at 2.9%. Accommodation and food services, and finance and insurance, both had a rate of 2.8%. Employers in education had the lowest rate, at 1.5%. Education also had the largest fall in vacancies on the quarter, with 5,000 fewer.

Reading the numbers with care

The headline numbers are averages over three months. That smooths out the bumps, and it also means they trail events by a few weeks. ONS publishes single-month estimates as well, in a table called X06. Those are not seasonally adjusted, and ONS advises care when comparing them with the headline series.

ONS publishes vacancies for the UK as a whole, broken down by industry and by size of business. It rounds the published numbers, so a change worked out by hand can differ slightly from the one ONS reports. The vacancy statistics are accredited official statistics. The Office for Statistics Regulation reviewed them in April 2022.