Both vacancies and salaries in the UK hit annual highs in March, according to the latest figures from Adzuna.
The job matching platform recorded the first annual growth in vacancies since July 2022, while vacancies grew for a second straight month, up 1.38% month on month. There were 871,168 jobs available.
The rise in total vacancies saw the jobseeker per vacancy ratio remain steady in March at 2.04, the same as February, after hitting 2.05 in January.
The average time it takes to fill job roles is now 35.3 days, up from 34.9 days in the previous month.
The strongest growth in vacancies was seen in healthcare, nursing and social work, with vacancies rising 9.59% and 8.64% respectively month on month.
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Sectors with the shortest time to fill jobs were legal (31.1 days) and admin (32 days), and the sectors where roles took the longest to fill were energy, oil and gas (40.1 days), IT (39.2 days), and consultancy (38.4 days).
There are still more job adverts without salary information than with, according to Adzuna, but salary transparency increased slightly in March to 48.62% of adverts with salary details – the third consecutive month of growth.
The largest hiring sector recorded by Adzuna was teaching, where jobs grew by 1.93% month on month to more than 163,000 jobs.
A few sectors experienced month on month declines, with graduate roles falling by more than 17%, in contrast to a 16.7% surge in February.
Trade and construction jobs fell slightly month on month, by 4.6%, scientific roles by 3.0% and energy, oil and gas by 2.9%.
Salaries edged upward across most sectors. Energy, oil and gas saw the strongest monthly wage growth at 3.6%, followed by teaching (2.9%) and healthcare and nursing (1.8%).
Month on month, only three sectors reported salary dips, including Sales (-1.2%), Maintenance (-0.5%), and Charity & Voluntary (-0.2%).
On an annual basis, logistics and warehouse salaries had the highest growth of almost a fifth (19.6%), followed by maintenance at 17.4%. Sales, maintenance and charity sectors reported slight dips year-on-year.
Legal was the only sector to post a decline in annual salaries for the second consecutive month, down 1% compared to March 2024.
Regionally, both vacancy and salary growth were driven by Northern Ireland, where year-on-year, roles went up by 36.4%, and salaries went up 13.1%.
There are now five regions with annual salaries typically above £40,000, according to Adzuna. London offers the highest average annual salary, at £48,276.
Andrew Hunter, co-founder of Adzuna, said it was encouraging to see “signs of green shoots” in the UK job market.
“This will help mitigate the worst fears around the impact of the national insurance and [national] living wage increases for employers in April.
“March’s rise in both advertised roles and salaries points to growing employer confidence – particularly across healthcare, social care and education. Salaries continue to climb steadily, with average advertised pay up +8.6% compared to last year, the fastest pace since 2022 and ahead of inflation.
“That said, there are still signs of caution. The sharp reversal in graduate hiring shows how fragile recovery can be, and employers may be waiting for clearer economic signals before committing to entry-level hiring. For now, though, the return to annual growth, however modest, is a positive step.”
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