In May 2025, the employment rate in the United Kingdom was 75.2 percent, up from 75.1 percent in the previous month. After almost dropping below 70 percent in 2011, the employment rate in the United Kingdom started to climb at a relatively fast pace, peaking in early 2020. Due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, employment declined to 74.6 percent by January 2021. Although not quite at pre-pandemic levels, the employment rate has since recovered. Labor market trouble in 2025? Although unemployment in the UK spiked at 5.3 percent in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, it fell throughout most of 2022, to just 3.6 percent in August 2022. Around that time, the number of job vacancies in the UK was also at quite high levels, reaching a peak of 1.3 million by May 2022. The strong labor market put employees in quite a strong position, perhaps encouraging the high number of resignations that took place around that time. Since 2023, however, the previously hot labor market has cooled, with unemployment reaching 4.6 percent in April 2025 and job vacancies falling to a four-year low of 736,000 in May 2025. Furthermore, the number of employees on UK payrolls has fallen by 227,500 in the first five months of the year, indicating that 2025 will be a tough one for the labor market. Headline economic measures revised in early 2025 Along with the unemployment rate, the UK's inflation rate is also expected to be higher than initially thought in 2025, reaching a rate of 3.2 percent for the year. The economy will also grow at a slower pace of one percent rather than the initial prediction of two percent. Though these negative trends are not expected to continue in the long term, the current government has already expended significant political capital on unpopular decisions, such as the cutting of Winter Fuel Payments to pensioners in 2024. As of June 2025, they are almost as unpopular as the previous government, with a net approval rating of -52 percent.

As of April 2025, 18 percent of UK businesses were aiming to cut their staffing levels, with 30 percent of retail firms intending to reduce their staffing levels. By contrast, almost half of information and communication companies were looking to increase their staff, with just seven percent planning cuts.

Redundancies by age, industry, and region, not seasonally adjusted. These estimates are sourced from the Labour Force Survey, a survey of households. These are official statistics in development.

This dataset contains gender pay gap figures for the GLA, large employers in London and estimates for all employees in London.

The gender pay gap is the difference in the average hourly wage of all men and women across a workforce. If women do more of the less well paid jobs within an organisation than men, the gender pay gap is usually bigger.

The UK government publish gender pay gap figures for all employers with 250 or more employees. A cut of this dataset that only shows employers that are registered in London can be found below.

Read a report by the Local Government Association (LGA) that summarises the mean and median pay gaps in local authorities, as well as the distribution of staff across pay quartiles.

This dataset is one of the Greater London Authority's measures of Economic Fairness. Click here to find out more.

This dataset is one of the Greater London Authority's measures of Economic Development strategy. Click here to find out more.

The Skills Survey is a series of nationally representative sample surveys of individuals in employment aged 20-60 years old (since 2006, the surveys have additionally sampled those aged 61-65). The surveys aim to investigate the employed workforce in Great Britain. Although they were not originally planned as part of a series and had different funding sources and objectives, continuity in questionnaire design has meant the surveys now provide a unique, national representative picture of change in British workplaces as reported by individual job holders. This allows analysts to examine how various aspects of job quality and skill levels have changed over 30 years.The first surveys in the series were carried out in 1986 and 1992. These surveys also form part of this integrated data series, and are known as the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative (SCELI) and Employment in Britain (EIB) studies respectively.

The 1997 survey was the first to collect primarily data on skills using the job requirements approach. This focused on collecting data on objective indicators of job skill as reported by respondents. The 2001 survey assessed how much had changed between the two surveys and a third survey in 2006 enhanced the time series data, while providing a resource for analysing skill and job requirements in the British economy at that time. The 2012 survey aimed to again add to the time series data and, coinciding as it did with a period of economic recession, to provide insight into whether workers in Britain felt under additional pressure/demand from employers as a result of redundancies and cut backs. In addition, a series dataset, covering 1986, 1992, 1997, 2001, 2006 and 2012 is also available . A follow-up to the 2012 survey was conducted in 2014, revisiting respondents who had agreed to be interviewed again. The 2017 survey was the seventh in the series, designed to examine to what extent pressures had continued as a result of austerity and economic uncertainties triggered, for example, by Brexit as well as examining additional issues such as productivity, fairness at work and the retirement intentions of older workers.

Each survey comprises a large number of respondents: 4,047 in the 1986 survey; 3,855 in 1992; 2,467 in 1997; 4,470 in 2001; 7,787 in 2006; 3,200 in 2012; and 3,306 in 2017.

The project to carry out the 2017 survey was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Cardiff University and the Department for Education with funding from the Welsh Government to boost the sample in Wales (ES/P005292/1).

The four specific objectives for SES2017, stemming from the overarching aim (to provide data on the skills and employment experiences of working life in Britain in 2017) were as follows:

1. To chart the level and distribution of, and changes to, some of the key drivers of productivity such as work organisation, job-related well-being, the skills requirements of jobs, and the incidence, volume and quality of training and learning.
2. To describe and analyse the level and distribution of key aspects of job quality in 2017 – such as employee involvement, work intensity, insecurity and well-being at work – and make comparisons with earlier data points in the series.
3. To use the data to develop distinctive, original and substantive contributions to scholarship surrounding job quality and job skill, and the connections these aspects of work have with productivity and innovation.
4. To make the data available and provide the necessary documentary material to allow further analyses by academic and policy-based researchers in the field of skills and job quality.

Further information may be found on the Cardiff University Skills and Employment Survey 2017 and How Good is My Job websites.

A standard End User Licence version of the SES2017 is available under SN 8581. It contains less detailed geographical information, covering Government Office Regions. Users are advised to download SN 8581 to see if it is suitable for their requirements before making an application for this study (SN 8581), the Special Licence version.

Jaguar Land Rover was employer to ****** people in its 2018/19 fiscal year. Under the helm of Tata Motors, longstanding British car institutions Jaguar and Land Rover were first joined in 2013 as Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Plc. However, vehicle assembly for each brand is still mostly separated along its three UK based production plants. Although employment figures had been steadily increasing in recent years, the company announced at the start of 2019 that it expected to cut up to ***** jobs from its management, marketing and administrative workforce. Brexit uncertainty, a declining demand from Chinese buyers and a shift to petrol and alternatively fueled vehicles post-Dieselgate were named as the most likely culprits.

Where the motor industry is at home

The greatest number of those employed in the motor industry were found in the West Midlands. The English region was heart and home to two Jaguar Land Rover production plants in Birmingham and Solihull, as well as assembly facilities for Aston Martin, Morgan and MG motors.

JLR cars’ market destination

As of 2018, Jaguar Land Rover had sold roughly ******* motor vehicles in its home market. This made the UK the single most important market destination to the company, following a significant decrease in Chinese sales.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The Skills Survey is a series of nationally representative sample surveys of individuals in employment aged 20-60 years old (since 2006, the surveys have additionally sampled those aged 61-65). The surveys aim to investigate the employed workforce in Great Britain. Although they were not originally planned as part of a series and had different funding sources and objectives, continuity in questionnaire design has meant the surveys now provide a unique, national representative picture of change in British workplaces as reported by individual job holders. This allows analysts to examine how various aspects of job quality and skill levels have changed over 30 years.The first surveys in the series were carried out in 1986 and 1992. These surveys also form part of this integrated data series, and are known as the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative (SCELI) and Employment in Britain (EIB) studies respectively.

The 1997 survey was the first to collect primarily data on skills using the job requirements approach. This focused on collecting data on objective indicators of job skill as reported by respondents. The 2001 survey assessed how much had changed between the two surveys and a third survey in 2006 enhanced the time series data, while providing a resource for analysing skill and job requirements in the British economy at that time. The 2012 survey aimed to again add to the time series data and, coinciding as it did with a period of economic recession, to provide insight into whether workers in Britain felt under additional pressure/demand from employers as a result of redundancies and cut backs. In addition, a series dataset, covering 1986, 1992, 1997, 2001, 2006 and 2012 is also available . A follow-up to the 2012 survey was conducted in 2014, revisiting respondents who had agreed to be interviewed again. The 2017 survey was the seventh in the series, designed to examine to what extent pressures had continued as a result of austerity and economic uncertainties triggered, for example, by Brexit as well as examining additional issues such as productivity, fairness at work and the retirement intentions of older workers.

Each survey comprises a large number of respondents: 4,047 in the 1986 survey; 3,855 in 1992; 2,467 in 1997; 4,470 in 2001; 7,787 in 2006; 3,200 in 2012; and 3,306 in 2017.

The Skills and Employment Surveys Series Dataset, 1986, 1992, 1997, 2001, 2006, 2012 and 2017: Special License Access combines data from all seven surveys in the series, where common survey questions were asked. For each survey, weights are computed to take into account the differential probabilities of sample selection, the over-sampling of certain areas and some small response rate variations between groups (defined by sex, age and occupation). All surveys cover Great Britain except the Skills Survey, 2006 which covers the United Kingdom.

The six surveys are all available separately from the UK Data Archive:

• Social Change and Economic Life Initiative Surveys, 1986-1987 (SN 2798)
• Employment in Britain 1992 (SN 5368)
• Skills Survey 1997 (SN 3993)
• Skills Survey 2001 (SN 4972)
• Skills Survey 2006 (SN 6004)
• Skills and Employment Survey 2012 (SN 7466)
• Skills and Employment Survey 2017 (SN XXXX)
  

This Special Licence access version of this study includes finer detailed geographical variables (notably TTWA) than is available in the general release dataset (SN XXXX).

Main Topics:

The main topics include:

• skills at work
• job quality
• training and skills development
• terms and conditions of employment

Revenue in the HR Provision industry is anticipated to dip at a compound annual rate of 3.8% over the five years through 2024 to €21.2 billion. This drop is down to turbulent economic conditions that have slowed company spending across Europe and cut space in businesses’ budgets for HR services. Surging inflation throughout Europe over the past couple of years has seen businesses reduce their spending on outsourcing HR services, while demand from the public sector has suffered in the face of governments cutting their budgets. In 2024, some HR providers have found opportunities in helping companies negotiate cuts to their workforces due to economic slowdowns across many European countries. Revenue is expected to drop by 2.2% in 2024. Revenue is slated to swell at a compound annual rate of 4.1% over the five years through 2029 to €26 billion. Artificial intelligence has already started to transform HR services across Europe and this is only set to become more prominent in the future, with analytics enhancing how companies can strategise and conduct future workforce planning. HR professionals will be better able to use AI to sift through CVs quickly and use data to predict the potential of a candidate being successful in their role. Companies will be able to create personalised training programmes and establish work advancement pathways through outsourcing to HR services. Workplace regulations will continue to evolve across Europe as employees demand greater rights and protection, raising demand for HR services to keep companies consulted on law changes and ensure employee satisfaction.

The Temporary-Employment Placement Agencies industry revenue is forecast to decline at a compound annual rate of 1% to £56.7 billion over the five years through 2024-25. The COVID-19 outbreak meant key employers of temporary workers in the sports and music events spaces completely shut their doors and businesses froze hiring, reducing clients for agencies. Sign-ups for temporary employment declined, hitting revenue in 2020-21. Companies pressed play immediately on hiring as the economy reopened in 2021-22 with record vacancies, particularly in the service sector, boosting revenue for recruiters since. A tight labour market is encouraging employers to rely on temporary-employment placement agencies to fight in an increasingly competitive market. Revenue is expected to rise by 1% in 2024-25. Rises in the National Living Wage (NLW) have disincentivised hiring additional staff to some extent. The NLW grew again to £11.44 in April 2024, raising the cost of temporary hires. With economic uncertainty continuing to dampen employer and candidate confidence in the two years through 2024-25, most recently stemming from the Autumn 2024 Budget that will increase employer national insurance contributions, businesses have slowed their hiring activity, disrupting agencies since there are fewer jobs to fill. This has dented the profit of many agencies who have had to cut costs by laying off employees throughout 2024-25. Inactivity is another mounting problem that recruiters are being confronted with. The number of available temporary employment positions has overall remained subdued in the aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak due to widespread business uncertainty amid an inflationary environment, Brexit-related recruiting challenges and high interest rates, limiting industry revenue growth. Still, temporary placements have fared better than permanent positions. Agency revenue is anticipated to climb over the five years through 2029-30 at a compound annual rate of 2.3% to £63.4 billion. Legislation relating to wage rates will adversely affect agencies, with a rising National Minimum Wage dampening demand for low-wage temporary employees. A talent shortage in the UK workforce will continue to challenge companies looking to fill vacancies, which are set to remain historically high despite gradually falling. Employers will keep turning to placement agencies for their databases to track and identify the right candidates. The gig economy is exhibiting signs of thriving through 2029-30, with the ONS anticipating 14.9 million participants in some capacity by 2026, another positive signal for temporary-employment placement agencies.

Employment placement agencies' revenue is forecast to grow at a compound annual rate of 3.6% over the five years through 2024-25 to £22.2 billion. 2020-21 was a year to forget for employment agencies, as the COVID-19 pandemic strongly discouraged hiring activity, denting agencies’ revenue. Evidencing this, figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reveal that the number of UK job vacancies posted reached a historic low of 340,000 over the three months through June 2020. However, increasing hiring activity signalled a return to business for agencies in the two years through 2022-23. A recruitment boom in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in record vacancies, signalling a hiring frenzy and driving strong revenue growth for recruitment companies. The job market began to slow down in 2023-24 with hiring demand abating, but even in January 2025, the ONS reported vacancies being above levels seen pre-pandemic. Still, some agencies have struggled. A fall in the number of permanent appointments has been behind a loss in revenue for many agencies. A reluctance to move jobs and a pause on large-scale hiring is reducing the amount of business arriving on recruiters' desks. The profit of most agencies has taken a hit through 2024-25, as business from clients has dropped, dampening net fees. Businesses’ economic concerns have kept employers from expanding their workforces in 2024-25. The looming hike to National Insurance for employers, sticky inflation and slowly falling interest rates are all weighing on hiring activity. Therefore, growth has tailed off from the highs seen in the two years through 2022-23, with revenue slated to edge up by just 0.6% in 2024-25. Recruiters are focused on cutting their costs until business picks up. Employment agencies’ revenue is anticipated to climb at a compound rate of 4.4% over the five years through 2029-30 to £27.6 billion. Although inflation remains sticky – it stood at 3% in February 2025 – interest rates continue to fall, which could restore some confidence back into the job market and help spark a greater wave of hiring. Online job search websites will likely remain a threat to recruiters, but the personalised nature of placement services ensures recruiters will remain. Roles in sustainability and tech will continue to grow in line with the pressing issues of climate change and cyber security threats.

Once a major powerhouse of the British economy, the coal mining industry was the lifeblood of several regions, providing employment to more than one million workers before the 1930s. Since that time, shifting attitudes towards coal and the emergence of alternative energy sources such as wind and solar have seen coal's role in the UK's energy mix diminish. By 1990, the coal industry was still an employer to some 50,000 people, however from 2016 onwards, this figure had fallen to less than one thousand. Coal mines in the UK As of 2023, there were seven UK coal mines left in operation. Of these, one was an opencast site and six were deep mines. The British government has made it clear that phasing out coal is necessary for the country to reach its goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. The industry is thus set to further contract in the future. Coal job cuts globally The shrinking number of jobs has not been isolated to the UK, with similar coal mining employment reductions in the United States. In some U.S. states, such as Kentucky, coal mining jobs had fallen by more than three quarters in the past ten years. In Australia, where coal mining has traditionally been as strong contributor to the economy, this decreasing trend is also visible.

As of Spring 2025, 18 percent of UK businesses were aiming to cut their staffing levels, compared with 52 percent who intended to maintain their current staff, and 25 percent who planned to hire staff.

In the three months to May 2025, there were around ******* redundancies made in the United Kingdom, compared with ******* in the three months to April. During this time period, the highest number of redundancies occurred in the three months to November 2020, when there were approximately ******* redundancies.

Employment placement agencies in Europe’s revenue is anticipated to contract at a compound annual rate of 3.2% over the five years through 2024 to €47.8 billion. The COVID-19 outbreak tanked business confidence and expansion plans because of economic uncertainty after months of global lockdowns, forcing hiring freezes in a tricky time for employment agencies. 2022 marked a resurgence for agencies. According to Eurostat data, employment in the EU reached a record peak of 74.6% in 2022, with unemployment falling month-on-month to 5.9% in August 2023. Companies enjoyed a post-COVID-19 boom in hiring, as the economy reopened and company’s began to look to expand thanks to improved business confidence which kept employment agencies busy. The labour market has proved resilient against the economic background of rising interest rates and high inflation but remains tight with several unfilled vacancies. Vacancies remain well above pre-pandemic levels but have steadily dipped from the sharp rise post-COVID-19 as companies unfroze hiring decisions, indicating a skills mismatch between job seekers and roles that agencies are struggling to negotiate. Several countries attempt to address long-standing labour shortages to ameliorate professional mobility and offer training courses for in-demand skills through agencies. France, for example, is addressing youth unemployment through upskilling training programmes. Public sector hiring in Germany and Spain in health and education also pushes revenue growth for agencies compared to stunted private sector demand. Revenue is expected to slump by 1.3% in 2024 amid job cuts in the technology sector. Revenue is projected to swell at a compound annual rate of 4.3% over the five years through 2029 to reach €58.9 billion. Agencies will continue to target revenue growth by elevating their online presence, specialising their services towards more niche sectors and targeting executives and upper management positions. Technological developments remain a threat to recruiters, with HR AI systems like Paradox able to scan networking platforms such as LinkedIn for candidates. Companies’ in-house HR teams are expanding too. The sustainability sector looks to be a hot property job market to target, but potential shortages in both high and low-skilled occupations driven by employment growth in STEM professions and healthcare will create hurdles in the hiring process in other sectors.

The Human Resources (HR) Provision industry is in the growth stage of its life cycle, as HR outsourcing has become increasingly popular. Over the five years through 2024-25, revenue has risen at a compound annual rate of 0.5% to reach £2.2 billion. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, a growing number of UK businesses and rising employment provided ample opportunities for HR providers. The range of services provided by HR providers has expanded beyond tasks that are necessary for the daily functioning of a business – though payroll services bring in the most revenue. However, inflationary pressures and rising energy bills have negatively affected businesses' confidence in the economy and government funding for HR over the last few years; revenue is set to grow by 2.6% in 2024-25. The introduction of new HR rules and regulations throughout 2024, have helped drum up business for HR providers. Over the five years leading up to 2029-30, revenue is forecast to grow at a compound annual rate of 3.5% to reach £2.6 billion. HR providers will continue to benefit from businesses increasingly outsourcing HR functions to cut costs and boost efficiency. However, potential clients could bypass the industry altogether – the increasing capabilities and ease of use of HR software are likely to make it easier for businesses to complete HR tasks in-house. The average industry profit margin is forecast to rise, though rising operating costs will still pose a threat.

The Skills Survey is a series of nationally representative sample surveys of individuals in employment aged 20-60 years old (since 2006, the surveys have additionally sampled those aged 61-65). The surveys aim to investigate the employed workforce in Great Britain. Although they were not originally planned as part of a series and had different funding sources and objectives, continuity in questionnaire design has meant the surveys now provide a unique, national representative picture of change in British workplaces as reported by individual job holders. This allows analysts to examine how various aspects of job quality and skill levels have changed over 30 years.The first surveys in the series were carried out in 1986 and 1992. These surveys also form part of this integrated data series, and are known as the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative (SCELI) and Employment in Britain (EIB) studies respectively.

The 1997 survey was the first to collect primarily data on skills using the job requirements approach. This focused on collecting data on objective indicators of job skill as reported by respondents. The 2001 survey assessed how much had changed between the two surveys and a third survey in 2006 enhanced the time series data, while providing a resource for analysing skill and job requirements in the British economy at that time. The 2012 survey aimed to again add to the time series data and, coinciding as it did with a period of economic recession, to provide insight into whether workers in Britain felt under additional pressure/demand from employers as a result of redundancies and cut backs. In addition, a series dataset, covering 1986, 1992, 1997, 2001, 2006 and 2012 is also available . A follow-up to the 2012 survey was conducted in 2014, revisiting respondents who had agreed to be interviewed again. The 2017 survey was the seventh in the series, designed to examine to what extent pressures had continued as a result of austerity and economic uncertainties triggered, for example, by Brexit as well as examining additional issues such as productivity, fairness at work and the retirement intentions of older workers.

Each survey comprises a large number of respondents: 4,047 in the 1986 survey; 3,855 in 1992; 2,467 in 1997; 4,470 in 2001; 7,787 in 2006; 3,200 in 2012; and 3,306 in 2017.

The Skills Survey, 2006 is the third in the series and collected data on skills utilisation from a nationally representative sample of working individuals across the UK.

The objectives of the project were:

• to provide up-to-date analyses of the level, distribution, value and trends in the skills being utilised in British workplaces
• to provide a description of the work preferences and work motivation of those in employment in Britain, and a systematic analysis of how preferences and motivation relate to the skill development that people experience in their jobs
• to develop further our knowledge about the relationship between employers’ human resource practices and the level and development of their employees’ skills
• to provide detailed analyses of skills levels and distributions within and between regions of Britain
• provision of a valuable data set for further analyses by the research community

Further information is available from the Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance web page.