UK job adverts by occupation

The Office for National Statistics counts new online job adverts every month, by occupation and by region. This page shows the occupations a graduate is most likely to be applying for, for July 2026, with the source, the method and the limits of the data stated before the numbers. It is free to reuse with attribution.

What was counted, exactly

The figures below are the number of new online job adverts posted during July 2026, collected by Textkernel and published by ONS as Labour Demand Volumes by Standard Occupational Classification (SOC 2020), UK, edition january2017 to july2026, released 21 August 2026. Occupations are Standard Occupational Classification 2020 codes and the labels are ONS's own, unedited. Regions are ITL1, the twelve statistical regions of the UK. Careery selected which occupations to show and changed nothing else.

New online job adverts, UK, July 2026

New online job adverts recorded by ONS in July 2026, by SOC 2020 occupation, United Kingdom total and London.
SOC 2020OccupationUKLondon
3556Sales accounts and business development managers12,8773,636
2134Programmers and software development professionals9,1772,860
2133IT business analysts, architects and systems designers8,0032,669
3571Human resources and industrial relations officers6,6721,281
3554Advertising and marketing associate professionals5,3361,393
2422Finance and investment analysts and advisers5,0651,513
2122Mechanical engineers4,481616
2431Management consultants and business analysts4,2341,379
2121Civil engineers2,221472
3544Data analysts1,708525
3543Project support officers1,513282
2142Graphic and multimedia designers1,409351
2421Chartered and certified accountants1,238340

Every region, by occupation

The same month, broken out by region and ordered by volume. A region with a small number is not necessarily a bad place to apply: fewer adverts usually means fewer applicants per advert, and the ratio is what decides your odds, not the raw count.

Sales accounts and business development managers (SOC 3556, 12,877 across the UK)
London3,636
South East1,862
North West1,387
East of England1,055
West Midlands1,014
South West905
Yorkshire and The Humber827
East Midlands792
Scotland586
Wales311
North East288
Northern Ireland144

UK total, last twelve months (Aug 2025 to Jul 2026): 11,987, 11,776, 14,528, 14,361, 7,229, 13,308, 10,153, [x], 11,263, 12,604, 17,673, 12,877.

Programmers and software development professionals (SOC 2134, 9,177 across the UK)
London2,860
South East1,290
North West928
East of England753
South West735
West Midlands557
Yorkshire and The Humber525
Scotland467
East Midlands388
North East234
Northern Ireland213
Wales202

UK total, last twelve months (Aug 2025 to Jul 2026): 7,744, 9,404, 10,213, 12,592, 5,222, 9,521, 6,619, [x], 7,249, 10,232, 14,641, 9,177.

IT business analysts, architects and systems designers (SOC 2133, 8,003 across the UK)
London2,669
South East1,134
North West717
South West688
West Midlands515
East of England504
Yorkshire and The Humber477
Scotland446
East Midlands299
North East194
Wales175
Northern Ireland151

UK total, last twelve months (Aug 2025 to Jul 2026): 5,430, 6,417, 7,674, 9,017, 4,622, 6,492, 5,191, [x], 6,037, 7,676, 9,605, 8,003.

Human resources and industrial relations officers (SOC 3571, 6,672 across the UK)
London1,281
South East1,050
North West827
South West574
West Midlands564
Yorkshire and The Humber531
East of England520
East Midlands438
Scotland328
Wales205
North East173
Northern Ireland144

UK total, last twelve months (Aug 2025 to Jul 2026): 6,307, 6,241, 6,565, 6,271, 3,771, 6,055, 5,028, [x], 5,641, 6,126, 6,922, 6,672.

Advertising and marketing associate professionals (SOC 3554, 5,336 across the UK)
London1,393
South East789
North West561
East of England458
South West385
West Midlands382
Yorkshire and The Humber377
East Midlands314
Scotland265
Wales153
North East119
Northern Ireland108

UK total, last twelve months (Aug 2025 to Jul 2026): 4,862, 4,843, 5,465, 5,357, 2,477, 4,823, 3,740, [x], 3,916, 4,674, 5,573, 5,336.

Finance and investment analysts and advisers (SOC 2422, 5,065 across the UK)
London1,513
South East711
North West494
South West412
East of England390
West Midlands374
Yorkshire and The Humber334
East Midlands294
Scotland244
Wales128
North East94
Northern Ireland59

UK total, last twelve months (Aug 2025 to Jul 2026): 6,290, 5,854, 6,158, 5,496, 3,138, 5,528, [x], [x], 4,206, 5,042, 6,363, 5,065.

Mechanical engineers (SOC 2122, 4,481 across the UK)
South East1,506
London616
North West425
East of England405
South West329
West Midlands323
East Midlands259
Yorkshire and The Humber184
Scotland173
North East114
Wales79
Northern Ireland54

UK total, last twelve months (Aug 2025 to Jul 2026): 2,119, 2,120, 2,609, 2,604, 1,383, 2,499, 2,013, [x], 1,933, 2,540, 3,839, 4,481.

Management consultants and business analysts (SOC 2431, 4,234 across the UK)
London1,379
South East525
North West412
East of England339
West Midlands316
South West284
Yorkshire and The Humber277
Scotland226
East Midlands187
Wales104
North East103
Northern Ireland58

UK total, last twelve months (Aug 2025 to Jul 2026): 3,639, 3,380, 3,501, 4,003, 1,868, 3,080, 2,706, [x], 3,233, 3,620, 4,181, 4,234.

Civil engineers (SOC 2121, 2,221 across the UK)
London472
South East288
North West262
South West209
Scotland201
West Midlands164
Yorkshire and The Humber157
East of England144
East Midlands130
North East75
Wales68
Northern Ireland44

UK total, last twelve months (Aug 2025 to Jul 2026): 1,937, 2,282, 2,285, 2,360, 1,724, 2,675, 1,636, [x], 2,148, 2,263, 2,372, 2,221.

Data analysts (SOC 3544, 1,708 across the UK)
London525
South East229
North West197
West Midlands132
Yorkshire and The Humber107
East of England104
South West103
East Midlands97
Scotland73
North East51
Northern Ireland44
Wales41

UK total, last twelve months (Aug 2025 to Jul 2026): 1,831, 1,692, 1,606, 2,005, 808, 1,674, 1,321, [x], 1,334, 1,505, 1,798, 1,708.

Project support officers (SOC 3543, 1,513 across the UK)
London282
South East225
North West157
South West144
East of England131
West Midlands128
Scotland127
Yorkshire and The Humber108
East Midlands80
Wales55
North East40
Northern Ireland30

UK total, last twelve months (Aug 2025 to Jul 2026): 1,615, 1,511, 1,621, 1,700, 777, 1,601, 1,293, [x], 1,347, 1,552, 1,492, 1,513.

Graphic and multimedia designers (SOC 2142, 1,409 across the UK)
London351
South East220
North West161
East of England118
Yorkshire and The Humber108
South West107
West Midlands105
East Midlands84
Scotland68
North East32
Wales30
Northern Ireland15

UK total, last twelve months (Aug 2025 to Jul 2026): 1,197, 1,160, 1,224, 1,408, 881, 1,020, 886, [x], 989, 1,118, 1,151, 1,409.

Chartered and certified accountants (SOC 2421, 1,238 across the UK)
London340
South East163
North West118
West Midlands97
East of England90
Yorkshire and The Humber82
Scotland81
South West78
East Midlands70
Northern Ireland61
Wales33
North East22

UK total, last twelve months (Aug 2025 to Jul 2026): 1,464, 1,702, 1,582, 1,639, 828, 1,515, 1,157, [x], 1,273, 1,357, 1,710, 1,238.

What this does not tell you

Stating this properly matters more than the numbers do, because a figure quoted without it will be quoted wrongly.

  • These are adverts, not vacancies. ONS says so itself and we repeat it. One advert can represent several roles or none, and the same role posted to three job boards can be counted more than once. The ONS Vacancy Survey is the official estimate of vacancies and it is a different series. Job adverts are not vacancies works through the distinction, and shows how far one occupation's own series moves inside a single year.
  • They are not live. This is a count of adverts posted during July 2026, published afterwards. It is not a count of what is open today, and nothing on this site counts what is open today.
  • There is no experience level. The data has no graduate or senior split. "Data analysts" means all of them. Anyone presenting a graduate-only figure from this dataset has invented it.
  • It is UK only. See below.
  • [x] means ONS did not publish a figure for that occupation in that month. It is ONS's own symbol, it is not zero, and it is reproduced here rather than filled in or quietly skipped. March 2026 is [x] for most of these occupations.
  • It is an official statistic in development. ONS badges it as such, which means the methodology is still being refined.
  • It is not ours. ONS collected and published it. We selected occupations and laid them out. ONS does not endorse Careery.

Why there is no equivalent figure for Riyadh or Dubai

Because it does not exist, and we would rather say so than publish something that looks like it. We went looking properly. Neither the Saudi General Authority for Statistics nor the UAE Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre publishes a job advert or vacancy series at all: both measure labour supply, meaning who is employed, rather than labour demand, meaning what is being advertised. The commercial job data APIs either do not cover the Gulf, or their terms forbid publishing aggregate counts by name, or their data is gathered from sites that prohibit it.

So any page telling you there are precisely so many open data analyst roles in Riyadh this month is either citing something it has not named, or counting something it should not have. That includes earlier versions of this website, which carried exactly that kind of figure until 16 September 2026 and no longer does.

What we publish for the Gulf instead is pay: bands by experience level for specific roles and cities, compiled from named public salary sources, with no volume claim attached. Those are on the salary pages.

Cite this page

You may copy, publish and adapt these figures, commercially or otherwise, under the Open Government Licence v3.0, provided you attribute the source. The licence asks for the attribution statement below. If you found the figures here, a link back to this page is appreciated and not required.

Every figure on this page, long format, one row per observation, is also available as uk-job-adverts.csv with the SOC code, ONS's own occupation label, the geography and the period. It is generated from the same data this page renders, so the two cannot disagree. ONS publishes the full series for every occupation back to January 2017 and you should use that if you need more than the graduate-relevant slice.

Source: ONS, Labour Demand Volumes by Standard Occupational Classification (SOC 2020), UK. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Figures for July 2026, edition january2017 to july2026, released 21 August 2026. Compiled by Careery, https://thecareery.com/uk-job-adverts

The original workbook is at ons.gov.uk. Every figure on this page is in Table 3 of that file and can be checked against it.

How often this updates

ONS publishes monthly. This page is regenerated from the workbook when a new edition appears, and the month and release date above change with it. The current figures are July 2026, released 21 August 2026. If those dates look stale to you, they are: the ONS landing page linked above always has the current edition, and you should prefer it over us.

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