Job Adverts Are
Not Vacancies
Last updated 30 September 2026
An advert count measures advertising, not jobs. One role advertised on three boards is three adverts; a reposted role is a new advert every week; and a large share of jobs are filled without being advertised at all. In ONS's own figures, one occupation's monthly count ranged from 1,383 to 4,481 inside a single year, a swing of 3.2 times.
Six Reasons the Two Are Different
- One job, several boards. The same role advertised on three sites is three adverts. Nothing in an advert count knows they are one job.
- Reposting. A hard-to-fill role is re-advertised, sometimes weekly, and each posting is new advertising activity.
- Roles that are never advertised. Internal moves, referrals and speculative hires fill a large share of jobs and appear in no advert count anywhere.
- Adverts that outlive the job. A posting is not taken down the moment an offer is accepted, and some are left up to collect applications for next time.
- Adverts for a pipeline rather than a seat. Graduate schemes and agency postings advertise a process, not a specific desk.
- The lag. These counts describe a month that ended about six weeks before you read them, so they are a record of what happened rather than a description of now.
None of this makes advert data useless. It makes it a measure of one thing rather than another, and the difference matters most in the direction people usually read it: a big number does not mean a big number of chances, and a falling number does not automatically mean fewer jobs.
One Occupation, One Year, Read From the Workbook
This is the series for mechanical engineers, the occupation that swings furthest across the twelve months in the current edition. The figures are new online job adverts recorded by ONS, monthly, UK wide. It stood at 4,481 in July 2026.
| Month | New online job adverts, UK |
|---|---|
| Aug 2025 | 2,119 |
| Sep 2025 | 2,120 |
| Oct 2025 | 2,609 |
| Nov 2025 | 2,604 |
| Dec 2025 | 1,383 |
| Jan 2026 | 2,499 |
| Feb 2026 | 2,013 |
| Mar 2026 | [x] |
| Apr 2026 | 1,933 |
| May 2026 | 2,540 |
| Jun 2026 | 3,839 |
| Jul 2026 | 4,481 |
The low is 1,383 in Dec 2025 and the high is 4,481 in Jul 2026, a swing of 3.2 times across 7 months. Nothing about the underlying economy for this occupation changed by that much in that time. What changed is how much advertising happened, which is what the series measures. A "4,481 jobs a month" headline and a "1,383 jobs a month" headline are both available from the same table, and neither is a count of jobs.
Cells marked [x] are figures ONS suppressed. There are 14 of them across the twelve monthly series in this edition, and printing them as zero would invent a collapse that did not happen.
What the Data Does Support
Three comparisons, in descending order of how much weight they can carry.
1Comparing occupations in the same month
The collection method is identical across occupations, so the relative sizes are the most trustworthy thing in the table. This is the comparison worth making if you are choosing between two directions.
2Comparing regions for one occupation
The regional split for a single occupation gives a rough read on where advertising is concentrated. Treat it as concentration, not as your chances in that region.
3Reading the shape of twelve months
A direction over a year survives the noise that any one month carries. The level of one month does not.
The full occupation and regional tables are on our ONS job adverts page, with the method and the limitations stated before the numbers, and the workbook linked so you can check any figure yourself.
What Careery Does Not Count
Worth stating plainly on the page that explains the distinction. Nothing on this site counts postings, vacancies or listings, and no page here will tell you how many roles exist for a job title. Job Scout is a single model call: it returns salary bands, a median, employer names, the factors that move an offer and a confidence rating. It reads no job boards and aggregates nothing.
The advert figures on this site are ONS's, reproduced from the published workbook rather than collected by us. If you want a count of what is being advertised for a role today, go and search the boards directly, and count what you find.
Source
Dataset: Labour Demand Volumes by Standard Occupational Classification (SOC 2020), UK
Edition january2017tojuly2026, released 21 August 2026. Latest month in the workbook: July 2026. These are new online job adverts, counted monthly, UK only, and they lag roughly six weeks behind the month they describe.
Source: ONS, Labour Demand Volumes by Standard Occupational Classification (SOC 2020), UK. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Where to Go Next
- UK job adverts by occupation and region. The full ONS tables, free to reuse with attribution.
- How to choose which job to aim for. Work backwards from real adverts rather than from a monthly total.
- Changing career in the UK. Eight destinations with the ONS advert count for each occupation beside them.
- How to find the skill gaps on your CV. What five real adverts tell you that a monthly count cannot.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are online job adverts the same as job vacancies?
No. An advert is a piece of advertising activity; a vacancy is a job an employer needs to fill. One job can be advertised on several boards and counted several times, an advert can be reposted weekly, employers fill a large share of roles without advertising at all, and an advert can still be published after the role is gone. So an advert count is a measure of what employers advertised in a period, not of how many jobs exist. ONS is explicit about this in the dataset itself: the figures it publishes are new online job adverts, counted monthly, and they lag roughly six weeks behind the month they describe.
How much do advert counts move month to month?
Enough that a single month tells you very little. In the twelve months to July 2026 in the ONS workbook, mechanical engineers ranged from 1,383 in Dec 2025 to 4,481 in Jul 2026, and stood at 4,481 in July 2026, a swing of 3.2 times. That is the same occupation, the same source and the same country, within one year. Any headline built on one month of advert data could have been written to say the opposite by picking a different month.
Does Careery count job adverts or vacancies?
No. Nothing on this site counts postings, vacancies or listings, and no page here will ever tell you how many roles exist for a job title. The advert figures we publish are ONS's, reproduced from the published workbook under the Open Government Licence with the dataset named and linked so you can check them. Job Scout is a single model call that returns salary bands, a median, employer names and a confidence rating; it reads no job boards and aggregates nothing.
What can I actually use an advert count for?
Three things. Comparing occupations in the same month, which is the comparison the data supports best, because the collection method is identical across them. Comparing regions for one occupation in the same month, for a rough read on where hiring is concentrated. And looking at the shape of twelve months rather than the level of one, which tells you whether demand is drifting rather than what it is. What it cannot tell you is your odds: it says nothing about how many people applied, which is the other half of any competition you are actually in.
Why does the ONS table have gaps in it?
ONS suppresses a figure it cannot publish and marks it "[x]" rather than zero. Across the twelve monthly series in the current workbook there are 14 suppressed values. Reading a suppressed cell as a zero would show demand collapsing in a month when it may have risen, so we print the marker as ONS prints it. If a chart you are reading shows a clean line with no gaps, either it is a different dataset or somebody filled them in.
Where does the ONS advert data come from and how current is it?
It is the dataset "Labour Demand Volumes by Standard Occupational Classification (SOC 2020), UK", edition january2017tojuly2026, released 21 August 2026, covering months up to July 2026. It counts new online job adverts, it is monthly, it is the UK only, and it lags about six weeks behind the month it describes. It is published under the Open Government Licence v3.0, so you can reuse it with attribution, which is how this page is able to reproduce it.
Is there an equivalent count for Saudi Arabia or the UAE?
Not an openly published monthly one of this kind, which is why no page here shows a Gulf advert count. Where a number does not exist we say so rather than estimating one. For the Gulf, the numbers this site can stand behind are pay bands compiled from named public sources, and the law and allowance rules quoted from the publishers that set them.
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Aim at a role, not at a number
A monthly total cannot tell you what to apply for. Five real adverts for the job you want can, and Careery will tell you which of their requirements your CV already evidences and which it does not.