As of the third quarter of 2025, South West England had the highest rate of employment in the United Kingdom at 79.5 percent. By contrast, North East England had the lowest employment rate at 69 percent.

As of the third quarter of 2025, the youth unemployment rate in the UK was highest in North East England at 23.6 percent, compared with the UK average of 15.3 percent. As of this quarter, Northern Ireland had the lowest youth unemployment rate at 7.8 percent.

London had the highest unemployment rate among regions of the United Kingdom in the third quarter of 2025 at *** percent, while for the UK as a whole, the unemployment rate was **** percent. Six other regions also had an unemployment rate higher than the national average, while Northern Ireland had the lowest unemployment rate in this time period, at *** percent. Labor market recovery after COVID-19 After reaching historically low levels of unemployment in 2019, there was a noticeable spike in the UK unemployment rate in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. After peaking at ****percent in late 2020, the unemployment rate declined throughout 2021 and 2022. High levels of job vacancies, resignations, and staff shortages in 2022, were all indicative of a very tight labor market that year, but all these measures have started to point in the direction of a slightly looser labor market. UK's regional economic divide While the North of England has some of the country’s largest cities, the sheer size and economic power of London is much larger than the UK's other urban agglomerations. Partly, due to the size of London, the United Kingdom is one of Europe’s most centralized counties, and there is a clear divide between the economic prospects of north and south England. In 2022, for example, the gross domestic product per head in London was ****** British pounds, far higher than the UK average of *******pounds, and significantly larger than North East England, the region with the lowest GDP per head at *******pounds.