The wider picture is cautious, but specialist demand is strong. Early estimates for April to June 2026 suggest a decrease of 7,000 (0.9%) vacancies to 712,000, compared with January to March 2026, according to the ONS. That follows a softer year: total estimated vacancies were down by 76,000 (9.5%) in December 2025 to February 2026 from a year earlier, the ONS reported in March 2026.
The market is often described as 'low hire, low fire', with weaker recruitment but only slight increases in redundancies and vacancies below pre-pandemic levels, the Low Pay Commission noted in its 2025 report. Against that subdued backdrop, businesses took a cautious approach to hiring, but there were demand hotspots for specialist tech skills including AI, data, enterprise applications and cyber security, Computer Weekly's tech recruitment outlook for 2026 found. In other words, headline vacancy numbers and AI-skills demand are moving in different directions, which is exactly why live signals matter.
AI skills are the clearest hotspot. 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, The Register reported using Accenture data. That concentration shapes where you compete and what you pay attention to.
The professional, scientific and technical sector, which houses much of this work, swings both ways. Its vacancies rose by 5,000 in August to October 2025, the ONS recorded in its November 2025 bulletin, yet it later saw one of the largest decreases, down 4,000 vacancies, the ONS found for April to June 2026. Reading one quarter in isolation can send you the wrong way.
There are signs of a turn, too. Permanent placements have finally stabilised, ending a decline in place since Liz Truss's premiership 45 months ago, while temporary billings increased for a fourth consecutive month, the REC and KPMG Report on Jobs found. For AI-transformation teams, that mix of stabilising permanent demand and steady temporary work is a useful planning signal.
Start by tracking the right signals on a rolling basis, not once a year. Watch quarterly vacancy direction, because early estimates suggested a decrease of 7,000 (0.9%) vacancies to 712,000, per the ONS, and pair it with skills-specific demand rather than the headline alone.
Good headcount decisions come from turning these signals into a timetable: who you need, when demand peaks, and how fast you can reach the right people before someone else does.
Reading the data is one step. Acting on it fast is the next. We search a database of 15 million candidates to surface people who match your brief, then manage the process end to end, so a shift in demand becomes a shortlist rather than a worry. Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost. Want to turn today's market signals into your next hire? Tell Reed.ai the role and we'll get started.
