The wider market is cooling, but engineering and technical roles are still competing hard for the same people. Early estimates for May to July 2026 suggest a decrease of 6,000 (0.8%) vacancies to 707,000 across the UK compared with February to April 2026, according to the ONS Vacancies and jobs in the UK bulletin. Over a longer window, total estimated vacancies were down by 76,000 (9.5%) in December 2025 to February 2026 from a year earlier, decreasing in 15 of the 18 sectors, the ONS reports.
Technical fields are an exception worth noting. In August to October 2025, the largest volume increase in vacancies was in the professional, scientific and technical activities sector, which rose by 5,000, the ONS found. So while the overall picture softens, demand for the kind of work developers do is holding up. That means your advert still sits in a crowded field, and small differences in how you describe the role decide who applies.
AI skills are reshaping what employers ask for. Demand for AI skills increased nearly 200 percent in a year, with London accounting for 80 percent of AI-related job postings and nearly two-thirds of all technology vacancies in the UK, according to Accenture data reported by The Register. If your advert still reads like it did two years ago, it may be benchmarking against a market that has already moved on.
Finding the right people is the harder half of the job. 76% of engineering employers struggle to recruit for key roles, with technical and specialist sustainability skills topping the list, the Institution of Engineering and Technology reports. When three in four employers are stuck on the same shortage, a vague or generic advert gets lost. Benchmarking against live postings shows you how competitors frame the same shortage skills, and where you can stand out.
Start by pulling up 10 to 15 current adverts for the same role in the same region. Read them the way an applicant would, top to bottom, and note what repeats and what is missing. Then compare your own advert line by line.
The goal is simple. Your advert should look at least as clear, specific and current as the strongest postings you find, and it should answer a developer's first three questions: what will I build, with what, and where. Benchmark once, fix the gaps, then check again after a week of applications.
Writing a sharper advert is step one. The next step is getting it in front of the right engineers quickly, and that is where we help. We search a database of 15 million candidates, rank a shortlist in under 30 seconds, contact matched people in under a minute and can book an interview in under three minutes. Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost. Benchmark your developer advert today with Reed.ai, then let us find the people to fill it.
