Office for National Statistics
The UK's official statistics agency, publishing economic, labour market and population data.
UK job vacancies rose for the first time in over a year on 21 July 2026, to 712,000, the Office for National Statistics reported, even as payrolled employment fell 85,000 over the same twelve months and youth joblessness sits at a 12-year high.
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The Office for National Statistics is the UK's largest independent producer of official statistics, responsible for the census, labour-market surveys, inflation indices and GDP estimates. Based in Newport, Wales, it reports to Parliament through the UK Statistics Authority and operates independently of government departments. Its monthly labour-market bulletin is the primary data source for UK employment policy and the Bank of England's rate decisions.
As with the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the ONS carries no AI-specific attribution layer in its reporting. That absence means policymakers, the Bank of England and organised labour are all reading the same blunt aggregate instrument with no explanatory framework for technology-driven displacement, a gap that has persisted through a year of frozen vacancies and a 12-year-high youth jobless rate .
The agency's numbers have become the reference point both government optimists and union sceptics cite in the same argument: the UK's own projection of 3.9 million AI jobs by 2035 is published against the identical evidence base the ONS's monthly releases keep failing to reconcile.
Its data show a jobs slowdown
The Office for National Statistics reported UK vacancies frozen at 721,000 across six consecutive publications through March 2026, then falling to a five-year low of 705,000 by 19 May, with payrolled employment down 210,000 over the year and youth unemployment at 14.7%, a 12-year high, in its June bulletin . None of its releases carry an AI-specific breakdown, leaving the Bank of England and organised labour to read the same aggregate numbers with no tool to separate cyclical loss from AI-driven displacement.
On 21 July the agency recorded the series' first quarterly rise, vacancies up to 712,000 for April to June, though payrolled employment still fell 85,000 over the year; the Resolution Foundation called it a rebound rather than a genuine turn .
Its numbers undercut a government promise
The government's projection of 3.9 million AI jobs by 2035 sits against the same evidence base the Office for National Statistics publishes each month; in March 2026 the agency recorded vacancies down 9.5% year on year and unemployment at 5.2%, with real wage growth of just 0.4 to 0.5% .
By 10 April its count had fallen further, payrolled employees down 96,000 year on year, still with no AI-specific attribution layer in any release. The gap between the promise and the agency's own aggregate numbers has not narrowed since, because the ONS still measures no mechanism the Bank of England now treats as a systemic financial risk .