Demand is real, but it sits inside a cautious market. The largest volume increase in vacancies in August to October 2025 came in the professional, scientific and technical activities sector, which rose by 5,000 ONS – Vacancies and jobs in the UK: November 2025. That's the part of the economy where most transformation, data and technology roles live.
At the same time, the wider picture is soft. Permanent staff appointments fell at the quickest rate in four months at the end of 2025, extending the downturn to 39 months REC – Report on Jobs: hiring activity declines at end of 2025. So transformation hiring is a pocket of growth in a hesitant market: budgets are tight, and every hire has to count.
The clearest signal is how teams now build AI capability. Apprenticeships have risen from 3% of AI hires in 2020 to 19% in 2025 GOV.UK / DSIT – AI Labour Market Survey 2025 report. Employers aren't just buying finished skills off the shelf; they're growing them in-house, which changes what a good hire looks like.
The digital core keeps expanding too. DSIT's Digital Sector Employment estimates measure the number of filled jobs across the UK digital sector, with the latest data covering April 2023 to March 2024 GOV.UK / DSIT – Digital Sector Economic Estimates: Employment. That's the base these transformation skills sit on top of.
There's a harder dynamic at the entry level. Adzuna has seen a 30% drop in UK entry-level job postings since ChatGPT's launch, with graduates facing the toughest job market since 2018 techUK – What's actually happening with entry-level and graduate jobs?. As AI absorbs routine work, the ladder into these roles is narrowing, which makes apprenticeships and internal reskilling look less like a nice-to-have and more like the pipeline.
Start with the skill, not the CV. When apprenticeships now make up nearly a fifth of AI hires, the strongest people won't always have the obvious title or a decade of experience. Write role definitions around what someone needs to do in the first 90 days, then assess for it directly.
Move quickly and keep people warm. In a market where confidence is low, the best people are often already in work and rarely on the market for long. A slow, silent process loses them. Set a clear timeline, give feedback fast, and don't let a shortlist sit.
We search a database of 15 million candidates to surface people by the skills your transformation team actually needs, then rank a shortlist in seconds so you can act while the market's still moving. You pay 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost, compared with the typical 15 to 25% agency fee, and it's always free for the people looking for work. Reed.ai gives you a faster, fairer way to hire for the skills the UK economy is shifting towards, so tell us the role and start today.
