The picture is uneven. On one hand, entry-level opportunity has contracted sharply. Adzuna data shows a 30% drop in UK entry-level job postings since ChatGPT launched, leaving graduates facing the toughest job market since 2018, according to techUK's analysis of entry-level and graduate jobs. The squeeze is even sharper in tech: the UK tech sector cut graduate jobs by 46% in the past year, with a further 53% drop projected, The Register reports, citing Institute of Student Employers figures.
On the other hand, demand for the right skills is rising fast. Against a subdued 2025 backdrop, businesses hired cautiously but there were clear hotspots for specialist skills including AI, data, enterprise applications and cyber security, Computer Weekly's tech recruitment outlook notes. The wider market backs this up: the largest volume increase in vacancies from August to October 2025 came in the professional, scientific and technical activities sector, which rose by 5,000, the ONS reports. So it's less a hiring freeze and more a rebalancing toward specific, higher-value skills.
AI capability sits at the centre. Demand for AI skills increased nearly 200% in a year, with London accounting for 80% of AI-related job postings and nearly two-thirds of all UK technology vacancies, The Register reports, drawing on Accenture data. That concentration matters: teams outside the capital are competing hard for the same AI-fluent people.
The routes into these roles are shifting too. Apprenticeships have risen from 3% of AI hires in 2020 to 19% in 2025, the government's AI Labour Market Survey 2025 shows. Alongside AI, data and cyber roles stay in demand. There are roughly 143,000 people in the UK cyber security workforce, with growth accelerating from 2% in 2022 to 5% in 2024, according to the government's cyber security skills report. And IT business analysts, architects and systems designers, some 193,000 workers, are among the occupations in critical demand, per the government's Occupations in Demand 2025 data.
What makes graduates different now is not the degree, it's fluency. AI-native graduates arrive already using AI tools to write, test and review code. That changes what a junior can contribute on day one, and it changes what teams should screen for: judgement about when to use AI, and the ability to check its output.
Start by hiring for adaptability over a fixed checklist. The labour market is currently described as 'low hire, low fire', with weaker recruitment but only slight rises in redundancies, the Low Pay Commission Report 2025 notes. In a cautious market, the cost of a wrong hire is higher, so define the problem the role solves before you write the advert.
Widen your routes in. With apprenticeships now a fifth of AI hires in the government's AI Labour Market Survey, the strongest teams blend graduates, apprentices and experienced specialists rather than betting on one channel. Test for real skills: give people a short, practical task that mirrors the work, including how they use AI tools, so you assess judgement rather than memory.
Move quickly on the people who fit. Specialist skills are contested, and hard-to-fill vacancies remain real in adjacent fields: 70% of cyber firms reported at least one hard-to-fill vacancy, the AI Labour Market Survey 2025 found. A slow, unclear process loses the best applicants to a faster one.
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