UK Vacancies Are at a 12-Year Low. Here's How to Job-Hunt Through It

If you have been applying for jobs this autumn and hearing nothing back, it is not you. The Office for National Statistics published its latest labour market figures last Tuesday, and the headline is that there are fewer jobs being advertised in the UK than at any point since 2014, leaving aside the pandemic.

The numbers

Vacancies fell by 21,000 to 691,000 in the three months to September. That is the first time below 700,000 since early 2021 and the biggest quarterly drop this year. Compared with a year ago, vacancies are down in eleven of the seventeen industries the ONS tracks. Retail and hospitality saw the steepest falls.

The strange part is that almost everything else looks fine. Unemployment is 4.7%, the lowest in over a year. The employment rate is up. Wages are growing again. Payrolls grew for two months in a row over the summer. There are 2.4 unemployed people for every vacancy, which is roughly where the ratio has sat for a year.

James Cockett, the CIPD's labour market economist, described it as a market that has stabilised but is stuck in low gear. Julius Probst at Recruitonomics was blunter: if you are looking for a new role or trying to enter the labour market, this is simply a very bad market, however low the unemployment rate.

Who has stopped hiring

The ONS is specific about where the decline is coming from. Small businesses account for most of the fall in vacancies, and they are naming higher labour costs as the reason. That tracks with the rise in employer National Insurance contributions and the minimum wage increase, both of which landed on small firms hardest.

Public sector vacancies are also falling sharply, which matters because the public sector has long been one of the more reliable routes into a secure job with decent inclusion policies.

The flip side, from the REC and KPMG's monthly survey of recruiters, is that permanent vacancies in the private sector rose in September for the first time in over two years. London permanent vacancies have now risen for six consecutive months. Large private employers are starting to hire again. It is the small and public ones that are not.

What this means for LGBTQ+ jobseekers

A tight market makes people cautious. One pattern we hear about from members in downturns is that candidates go back into the closet for interviews, scrub anything LGBTQ+ from their CV, and take the first offer rather than the right one. That is understandable and nobody should feel judged for it. But it tends to lead to a job you cannot be yourself in, which is its own problem six months later.

A market where large companies are hiring and small ones are not actually plays to the strengths of a platform like ours. The employers on myGwork are overwhelmingly the large private organisations that are hiring right now, and every one of them has committed to LGBTQ+ inclusion as a condition of being listed. You should not have to choose between a job and a safe workplace, and with these employers you don't.

Six things worth doing this autumn

Go where the hiring is. The REC data says private sector, permanent, and increasingly London. Public sector and small business are where the drought is. If your search has been focused on charities, councils or startups, broaden it.

Apply to the big employers directly. There are around 67,000 live roles on the myGwork jobs board, across every sector and seniority. Filter by location, remote and company. The employer profiles will tell you which ones have an LGBTQ+ network, what their benefits cover and what they have actually done, not just signed.

Come to WorkFair on 4 November. Our free virtual career fair runs from 11am to 7pm GMT and puts you in live conversation with recruiters from inclusive employers who are actively hiring. In a market where applications disappear into a void, fifteen minutes with a real recruiter is worth a hundred online forms. Details at mygwork.com/workfair.

Use the network. More jobs are filled through referrals in slow markets, not fewer, because employers trust a recommendation over a stack of applications. The myGwork member directory, mentoring programme and events exist for exactly this. Ask people who work at the companies you are targeting what it is like, and whether they will refer you.

Don't drop your identity from your CV to play safe. If an employer would reject you for a Pride network role or a volunteering position with an LGBTQ+ charity, you have learned something useful before you took the job. The employers we work with see it as a positive.

Be patient with the timeline, not with the search. Hiring processes are slower right now. Two months from application to offer is not unusual. That is a reason to run several applications in parallel, not to wait on one.

For employers

If you are a large organisation still hiring, this is a moment when you have the market's attention. Candidates are watching closely for signals of what a company stands for, and inclusion commitments carry more weight when they are not fashionable. Posting on a platform like myGwork, turning up at WorkFair and keeping your employer profile current are low-cost ways to reach talent that other employers are not reaching. If you are not yet listed, you can find out how it works at mygwork.com/about-us/corporate-solutions.

If you are a small employer who has had to pause hiring, keep your LGBTQ+ staff in the loop about what is happening and why. Uncertainty is harder to live with when it comes with silence.

Sources: Office for National Statistics, "Vacancies and jobs in the UK: October 2026", 20 October 2026; KPMG and REC UK Report on Jobs, October 2026; CIPD; Recruitonomics; Personnel Today.