LONDON / RankWire.AI / – Graduate job vacancies across the UK fell by almost half in July from a year earlier, highlighting a tighter entry-level hiring market. Adzuna counted 8,383 advertised graduate roles during the month, compared with 15,397 in July 2025. The decline was about 46%. The latest total also marked the lowest point since the platform began tracking graduate vacancies in April 2016. Graduate openings had exceeded 55,000 at the series peak in 2017.
Competition also increased across the broader UK labour market. There were 2.14 jobseekers for every vacancy in July, up from 1.93 a year earlier. The ratio covers jobs across the economy rather than graduate positions alone. The graduate vacancy figures reflect online advertisements collected from more than 1,000 sources. They therefore measure advertised graduate openings in that dataset, rather than every job that could be available to a university graduate.
Official data point to weaker demand across the wider employment market. The Office for National Statistics estimated 707,000 vacancies between May and July 2026. That represented a fall of 6,000 from the previous three-month period. Vacancies were also 19,000 lower than a year earlier. Separately, the number of unemployed people per vacancy rose to 2.5 in April through June, from 2.3 during the same period last year.
Graduate applicants face heavier competition
A record number of young people also secured UK undergraduate places this summer. UCAS reported that 262,820 UK 18-year-olds had gained a place by results day on August 13. That total was 3% higher than the 255,130 recorded at the same stage in 2025. The entry rate for UK 18-year-olds reached 31.6%. The figures add context to a labour market where large numbers of future graduates will eventually compete for professional and entry-level roles.
Competition is already high among employers running formal graduate recruitment programs. The Institute of Student Employers recorded just over one million graduate applications during the 2024/25 recruitment cycle. Employers in its survey received an average of 140 applications for each graduate vacancy. Those figures show the scale of applicant demand in established graduate hiring channels. They also sit alongside the sharp decline in advertised graduate vacancies recorded in the latest monthly jobs data.
UK hiring market remains under pressure
Employment costs have also shifted since changes to employer National Insurance took effect in April 2025. The contribution rate increased to 15% from 13.8%. The annual secondary threshold fell to £5,000 from £9,100. In its latest vacancy survey, the national statistics office said some small businesses reported limiting recruitment because of higher labour and operating costs. Its data showed vacancy levels falling across nine of the 18 industry sectors covered by the survey.
Artificial intelligence has also become part of the discussion around entry-level work, although official analysis remains limited on its separate impact. Skills England said in August that isolating the effect of AI from wider labour market trends remains difficult. Meanwhile, 1.012 million people aged 16 to 24 were outside education, employment or training in January through March 2026. That represented 13.5% of the age group and an increase of 89,000 from a year earlier.